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132. Breaking Chains: The Power of Mental and Spiritual Discipline
46 Plays1 month ago
In this episode of the Spiritual Fitness podcast, host Eric Bigger explores the transformative power of mental and spiritual discipline with William (Adisa) Dempsey, a life coach and author from Baltimore. William shares his remarkable journey from the challenges of Baltimore’s west side, through 17 years of incarceration, to becoming a beacon of positivity and resilience. With raw honesty, he reveals how he conquered personal darkness, finding empowerment through education, mentorship, and a commitment to self-discipline. His story touches on themes of accountability, growth, and empowerment, highlighting the importance of balancing all aspects of personal development — mental, physical, emotional, spiritual, and financial. Through this balance, William demonstrates how embracing adversity can lead to a life of continuous improvement and meaningful impact.
Also in this episode:
- Transformation through adversity, William's personal story illustrates how challenging life experiences can be transformative if approached with accountability and introspection.
- Empowered individuals hold the potential to significantly influence communities, promoting collective greatness and positive societal change.
- The guidance and influence of mentors play a crucial role in personal growth, highlighting the value of learning from others' experiences.
Guest Bio
Empowering Change, Inspiring Greatness – William (Adisa) Dempsey is a dynamic leader committed to transforming lives and uplifting communities. With over two decades of experience, he has impacted countless individuals as an accomplished author, certified life coach, and motivational speaker. Passionate about youth empowerment, William founded a thriving youth group that fosters resilience, purpose, and growth. His books, The Juggernaut in the Struggle and Battle Surgery: The Black Male's Transformation Towards Manhood, delve into themes of empowerment and transformation. Dedicated to community development, William partners with organizations to create meaningful programs that promote social cohesion and inspire collective greatness.
Connect with William: [email protected]
Instagram: Actionfigureyo
FaceBook- William Adisa Dempsey
Check out Miracle Season’s collection: https://itsmiracleseason.co/collections/frontpage
Work with me: https://www.ericbigger.com/workwithme?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=work_with_m...
Connect with Simplified Impact: https://hubs.ly/Q02vvMJ90
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Transcript
Introduction to Spiritual Fitness Podcast
00:00:06
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. 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.
00:00:41
Speaker
Spiritual Fitness, Spiritual Fitness podcast. I'm back again with another episode in this
Meet Adisa Dempsey
00:00:46
Speaker
one. People is going to be incredible. It's going to be raw. It's going to be real. It's going to be authentic because I have a special guest from Baltimore. He's also from my neighborhood.
00:00:56
Speaker
powerful individual. He's an author, a licensed coach, just a leader in his own regard. And I'm just really grateful to see him in the flesh. His name is Adisa Dempsey. He's here today on the Spiritual Fitness podcast. Adisa, how are you? What's going on? I'm great. you know I'm ecstatic. I tell people all the time, man, it's about moving forward, just living in the moment. So I'm just taking everything as it comes and just you know making sure that I'm making the right decisions.
00:01:25
Speaker
Yeah. So before we get into the story of you and what you do, I want to read one of your quotes or one of your sayings and you can kind of elaborate what it means. Empowered individuals, transforming communities and inspiring collective greatness. What does that actually mean?
00:01:41
Speaker
The reality is people make the world go round. And when we look at society, most people are the way they are because of the social interactions they grow up around. Relationships are key. And when you have powerful individuals around you, somebody that has an empowered mind, they have the ability to empower other people by their presence alone because they live this standard. We deal with a lot of people's society that are lip professors.
00:02:06
Speaker
They could say whatever, right? But if their actions don't coexist, it creates that false narrative. It makes people look at them as hypocrites and things like that. But also it conditions people's behavior to be the same way sometimes, right? So when you are that powerful person, right? You can create greatness in other people just by being in their presence because you set the standard.
00:02:28
Speaker
And it's crazy because I remember growing up, we're from the West side of Baltimore. When I saw you growing up, I mean, I was young, right? I probably was like 15, 14, 16. You had this own authority about you that you ain't saved much, but your energy did. And back then, I mean, that was years ago.
00:02:46
Speaker
So we want to get a little bit into the story of you.
Adisa's Challenging Upbringing
00:02:50
Speaker
Let's tell people about your journey, like how you grew up, what your beliefs were, and what was your turnip points in your life to be as great that you are today. How did it all manifest for you?
00:03:00
Speaker
Well, growing up, I grew up in Whitelock. Being you know mixed, light-skinned, head, everything and all that, it was a journey. like I was the guy that girls looked at and liked, and I was quiet to myself, and a lot of guys, you know, hating or jealousy or something like that, would try to pick on. And I remember growing up, chased home by a group of dudes wanting to fight and all that, and I got to the point where I was all just tired of it. So what I did was, you know I just called all of them one-on-one and just crushed them.
00:03:29
Speaker
and left it like that. And I grew to be that person where as though that he got hard. you know I'm standing up to older dudes that was out on the block and letting them know, like you're just not going to run over me. You're not going to just take advantage of me. right Deep down, I was always that person who had a good heart. I cared about people, but I also was the type of person that like I didn't like to be played with at all.
00:03:53
Speaker
And growing up in that type of environment, you know people were getting killed every day, especially when I'm on my block. I was on Calo. So on Calo right there, them corners was full. Growing up around there, seeing all that, you had to be tough back then in order for you to be able to survive and overcome. Either you was fighting back or you were the one, I mean, taking advantage of. so Yeah, and that's the thing. you know I think a lot of people don't understand, at least for me, you know they see me And then they hear your story, but we grew up in the same environment, right? I took a different route, of course, but I come from that tough environment. You know, I maneuver do things because I had the privilege to play sports and play ball. And I had an uncle who was kind of in his own way, regard authority figure in that space.
00:04:36
Speaker
but I want people to know that just because you come from the same area and you can take different routes, we still can end up on the same path. And today, if I'm not mistaken, you've been home because you was incarcerated for what, 17, 18 years, me right? And I've been in LA for 14 years, but yet you're a life coach. You're a trainer. You're a motivator. You're an author. I do the same thing. so Even though we took different routes, we still ah ended up on the same path and you went through things in a different way than I did. But you're now giving back, empowering people, teaching people how to be great, how to be accountable, how to be vulnerable. What did those 17, 18 years behind the wall teach you
Transformation in Prison
00:05:17
Speaker
about? Not only just life, but manhood and wanting to be great, like developing yourself to be something and so when you came home, you was adding the stream like so much of
00:05:28
Speaker
Forger the fire, 17 behind the wall. Coming in there, right? My mentality was is that the first person to jump out there, I'm going to deal with. And I remember coming in on the hopper tear up the new jail. First dude jumped out there, knocked him out. And the reaction I got from the older guys made me look like, this ain't really like how everybody cut it out to beat, right? Because they were pulling me up like, sure, you've got to slow down. But my mentality was like, man, I'm going to deal with you, get you off the way.
00:05:58
Speaker
I don't want you thinking that you can just roll over the top of me and do this and do that, right? But the process was I started to learn that the problem wasn't where I was. The problem was me. There was a lot of things that I was doing that was creating the scenarios in my life. If you walk around as a person that always wants something that I wish to do would mentality, right? Somebody going to try you because you're generating that type of energy to be attracted to you. People, you attract where you at.
00:06:27
Speaker
And I remember getting into a beef, had a bunk buddy, he ah came out of his mouth sideways, I punished him, and then, you know, and just put him out to sell. Then I remember it was like four months later, now I've been running through the car panel, come from six, punished my cell buddy, boom. I went down to another building, slapped the dude, went over here, got into a beef.
00:06:50
Speaker
And then like about four or five months later, you know, the same dude, I mean, that it was my body that I punished. He put some money on my head. Wow. And the money he put on my head was the gang. When they found that it was me, the dude that was running it.
00:07:06
Speaker
was from around the way. Wow. Hugged me up, showed me the note and everything. It was like, yeah, man, dude, put some grams on your head. It was like, man, you know, what you want to do? And I remember running down on a dude, whipping out, about to stab him up. And the look in his eyes, right, made me realize, I created this, man.
00:07:26
Speaker
I put this fear in this man for this man to de-plot on my life. And I'm like, I realized that I was the issue. You feel what I'm saying? I got to work on it, right? The transformation happened because there was an older brother that was in there that was doing a lot of conscious work. And one of the other dudes that was under him told him about me, right? But the younger dude was like, yeah, it's slim crazy. So the brother was like, he ain't crazy, he a warrior.
00:07:50
Speaker
So, he walked down on me, boom, say, man, look, I want to talk to you, right? What you want to talk about? He was like, man, I'm trying. I said, look, man, if you ain't got nothing that's going to get me out of here, I don't want to hear it. He was like, I got you. And he gave me the book, Breaking the Chains in Psychological Sleep. And when I got that book, I started reading it. It started challenging my mind. So the more I read, the more I challenged my mind, the more I started looking at myself. The one thing about the human mind is this, right? It needs something to measure against.
00:08:18
Speaker
So when you measure it against substance that is powerful, empowering, inspirational, cultural, right what it does is it seeks out the recesses of the mind to match that or go against it. So what I did was I started transforming myself. I started working on it. Next thing you know, I already had the respect because dudes looked up to me because I was strong. you know I was one of the strongest dudes behind the wall, lifting weights and doing what I was doing.
00:08:46
Speaker
The thing that pushed me towards the change was something inside me kept on saying, like, if you don't get your life together, you ain't never going to come home. All of these successions of situations happen, right? Boom. I went down with Tuxon, was down there, got her to a beef down there with like eight dudes, stabbed a bunch of dudes up, and it put me in a position where as though that I'm going to lock up. The only reason I didn't catch any charges is because the po police were so scared that they locked their self in the closet.
00:09:14
Speaker
Damn. For real? Yeah. You feel what I'm saying? They didn't even break up the beef. Like, it dismantled. And after that, dudes was like, man, you don't mess with Adisa. Like, you're slimmest serious. And my mother pulled away from me. She told me, she was like, you don't want to change. You just want to hurt people. And that was the thing that really made me look at myself. Like, I started losing people because you got to realize, behind the wall, when stuff happens behind the wall, it gets on the streets fast.
00:09:44
Speaker
My mother knew all this stuff that was going on, what I was doing in there. You know, I would get on the phone and she hears stories and stuff. And then it's pumping up my family. And then my brother, he ended up getting into a temporary murder. And all this stuff was coming at me and it's like, man, I'm generating this, right? So my brother got locked up.
00:10:03
Speaker
What I did was I wrote him every week about everything that's going on, the whole system, how it is, whatever. Told him, I mean, watch out for these pitfalls and stuff, right? And what happened was he ended up listening to the advice I gave him. He got waved down as a juvenile because he added a thought charge. He got waved down as a juvenile, but they've been trying to give him like 25 years and he ended up going home. Came home on a Monday and Friday he was in the visceral with my whole family.
00:10:32
Speaker
And he been rocking with me every since. And the thing is, about that is, I gave him something to mean that a lot of people didn't give him. I gave him the truth. I gave him the truth of what he was dealing with, right? And he made the right decisions, right? I love him to death, man. I respect me and the man he is, the father he is. Man, he a great father, you know? And this is crazy, right? Because the letters I was sending to him, he was reading it to guys, right? It was around him. And I was at another jail.
00:10:58
Speaker
And a little young brother was like, Roland brother, you were all our big brother, man. He was reading them letters to us, man. But these things were indicators to me that I got to live like this. I got to do right, man. As long as I'm doing right, it's going to come back. If I do wrong, I may get some instant gratification right now, but later on, it's going to come back and bust me in the head, right?
00:11:18
Speaker
You know, and even the beef that I got into down the the guy that I got into it with years later, right? We meet up because I didn't already did like a 360 exchange and everything. I'm creating programs. You know, I'm getting dudes out of gangs, offer drugs away from violence. I ended up getting them into one of my programs and they're becoming the main his mentor. People want change, man.
00:11:42
Speaker
But you know, some people don't want to take the first step. They want to hold on to pride, ego, or stuff like that. Man, I let that stuff go a long time ago, man. I care about the people. And because I care about the people, I do in the best interest of people, right? And that put me on the path to constantly keep evolving into the person I am, right? That alone in me with the culture that I was practicing. I mean, studying African culture and history, studying, you know, people like Frederick Douglass, Nat Turner, Millikar Kebrel, Patrice Lumumba, you study in prominent black strong men, right? And what it does is it gives a sense of pride of who you are, right? And it makes you want to move better.
00:12:22
Speaker
Man, I was up to new jail. First time in ever history, I had a program that I implemented a lockup to be able to help guys get their life together and come off and stay off a lockup.
00:12:36
Speaker
Man, you should've seen how the police were. They ain't knowin' what to do. They was like, what? Because I did the work so much, I mean, that people were like, man, let him do it. Because the juveniles that got locked up, they didn't have a baby book in Baltimore, right? yeah So they were coming up to thought prison, right? But they were too young to be in population, and they kept on segregation because it was against the law to have them in population if something happened to them, right? Man, they was wildin' the police out. I came over there, I talked to them for five minutes, right?
00:13:05
Speaker
It was no more. Five minutes to talk to him. Warden was like, what did you say to him? I said, man, I know their situation. I've been there. They kept asking, when are you going to come back over? So a warden was like, create a program, I'll approve it. Took me three weeks to develop it. Went over there, ran the program, created an aftercare program, and kept it moving. And the reality is is that, you know, change is possible, man. But how hard are you willing to fight? But also, how much of the example are you willing to beat? They had that part. And it's one thing that i stood out for me, for you, for the people listening. If you listen to you what you are saying and people watching that's going to listen to this,
00:13:44
Speaker
Your mother changed, but she told you something. She said, you don't want to change. You just want to hurt people. And that hurt you to get you to change. He was writing your young brother letters. He was reading the words to his armies. Your words change people.
00:14:00
Speaker
So then you went on this journey of getting information, information changes situations. And now you here today creating programs and getting men into better positions mentally, emotionally, spiritually. And you studied, you vetted, like, you know what I'm saying? You battle tested. And I've learned.
00:14:18
Speaker
You're so in your light because you know what the darkest light. You wasn't afraid of your dark. And I think a lot of us are afraid of our dark, or we're not, and we stay in the dark and we're afraid of the light. You went to the dark side to feel those demons or that shadow frequency to now say, okay, this is, I'm a herby people, but I want to help people.
00:14:37
Speaker
Let me get this information. Let me get it to the light. Let me change these young boys. And because of the chance of relatability and vulnerability, they have to listen. Because energetically, you've done the work. Like people don't understand the over energy you end and you operate. People have to submit. Because that's all it is, is vibration. You don't respect words. You don't respect what you see. You respect what you feel.
00:15:02
Speaker
I'm like, yeah, young boy, I know you probably want to bust him over there. Yup, you probably want to stab him up. You probably here for a 10. You probably really killed someone. Yeah, I know. But guess what? Ain't none of that going to work because I've been here. So I'm just proud to know you to who you are today.
00:15:18
Speaker
and for you to bring this authenticity and this love because boys need men and men need men, right? And I feel like there's not enough real men in today's world because of social media, because of the lack of men leadership and wisdom around because guys like you behind the wall probably never come home, some in the graveyard, at least where we come from. So you only go off what you see and not what you know.
00:15:44
Speaker
It's not entirely me. And the reason why I say it's not entirely me because I got locked up as a boy. It took men to see the fire and tame the fire to help with the molding of the fire, yeah be able to create a main, you know,
00:15:59
Speaker
who I am today. Right. You know, so I want to you know make recognition to me, you know, if it wasn't for, you know, Bob and Motep Fox, you write the guy that I told you to walk the bomb and it gave me the book. Right. If it wasn't for him, you know, being consistently in my life and pushing me towards and also being an example, because at the end of the day, the example I set, right. The way that I live creates the beliefs, yeah i not what I say. Yeah. Right. He did that for me.
00:16:26
Speaker
And even now, right, he's my son's bapai. Bapai means grandfather, right? He gave me my name Odisha and then he named my son. So the thing is, is that, you know, we have to recognize, you know, the line of effect because it was men that I studied that allow me to hang who I am, right? and We can't do this alone, right? And that's the problem. Like, even like me and you building, right? Still sharp and still. And you have two books, if I'm not mistaken. You got battle surgery and a juggernaut. Let's talk about those two because I love those titles. Where were you mentally and emotionally wrote those books and which book came out first?
00:17:08
Speaker
The first book I wrote was for my niece.
Writing 'Battle Surgery'
00:17:10
Speaker
Every little girl wants to be treated like a princess. And I wrote it for her because she was at that age and I wanted her to understand i mean the struggles that she would go through as your black young lady. And I wrote it for her and that created the doorway for me to build the other things. Now, even though I put off the juggernaut and the struggle first, Battle Surgery was the first real official book that I really wrote.
00:17:36
Speaker
And it took me about 12 years to write this book because everything in this book is what I did to help transform me and where I'm at now, right? This is the discussion between me and me about what it is to be a man, right? It's my philosophies, it's the outlook, it's the most, the principles, it's the triggers, it's all of those things combined, right? So I used to walk around with this notepad in my pocket, right? And I used to write down all these concepts, right?
00:18:05
Speaker
little ideas about life. And this is how I started to cultivate my mind to be a more of an outside of the box thinker. And Bob Hamilton used to call me, are you going to bat, or ain't you? Yeah, I'm doing surgery. And then battle surgery came about, right? So when I wrote the book,
00:18:23
Speaker
I dealt with everything that I thought that the urban male was struggling with. But I also wrote it in the premise for if I had a son and he didn't get a chance to have time with me because something happened, that he would have a manuscript to understand the struggles that mean that he may face down the line.
00:18:41
Speaker
right It's a workbook. It got questions to each section in the book. It's very in-depth. A lot of people that read it always say, it makes me think. and That's what it was for. It was for to make people think. right you know I want people to be able to think. I want them to be able to challenge because that's where growth comes from. You can't grow if what you're looking at i mean is not challenging you to become greater. It has to be some type of energy that mean that makes you dig deeper into you. right and The book is relevant to anybody that is us. I've had women pick this book up and be like, because it gives them a better understanding of the black mind. It gives them a better understanding of people that struggle in the streets. It gives them a better understanding of how a man's mind works. We got to produce material. For example, right when we look at society,
00:19:30
Speaker
We got to be able to produce what addresses society's issue. Too many things are not relevant. You know, so when you're reading something, I mean, that's speaking about something that isn't relevant to your situation.
00:19:43
Speaker
you're not going to receive it, right? You're not going to make it important. That's because a lot of us read books because we're told to read them, but we're not in alignment to read those because our soul can't receive that transmission from that because we're not even in a position to even understand what it's saying. I always tell people, don't read something to me that is not where you're at or where you want to go. Like my thing is like people that read this book are people to mean that are struggling in manhood. If you're struggling in manhood, I mean, this book is perfect for you.
00:20:11
Speaker
But you got to be willing to do what is being prescribed for you. Like I had one brother, right? I was at Dorsey Run. This is a pre-release jail I was at. This is before I came home. So I had like a rough copy of this and I let a young brother read it. And it got questioned in East action, right? He read the book, right? After he read the book, he literally laid in the bed with a sheet over his head for like three hours.
00:20:35
Speaker
When I checked on him, he was like, yo, you just messed my head up. I'm like, why? He's like, I got to evaluate everything I've been doing with my life. And I said, so what are you going to do? He was like, I got some work to do. And I'm like, all right, let's do this work then. Let's get it. Get it in, yeah. So that's the thing is that you got to be willing to want to do the work.
00:20:55
Speaker
like But people don't understand that doing the work is not talking about it, but actually examining where your mistakes are and making reservations for the solution to come with it. Like a person might come to you like, I'm going through this and you give them a solution. And they'd be like, nah, I'm all right. It's like, you don't want change. You want somebody to feel for you.
00:21:17
Speaker
yeah Right? but But you got to do the work, right? Because at the end of the day, how many times have you been wrong for doing something and go inside yourself, recognize you're wrong, go to the person, apologize to them, let them know what I mean, you're wrong and why you're wrong, and then make amends. The work is hard, it's pretty, it's dirty, you know? It's being able to look in the mirror. Like, you'll go on the streets to fight anybody hand combat, right? But you won't go in the mirror and deal with yourself.
00:21:44
Speaker
It's true. I tell people the hardest work you're ever doing in life is on yourself, not a job. you know The book As A Man Think It, they said, people, man is willing to change his life, but he's not willing to change himself. You know he want him circumstances to change, but he don't want to change. yeah in The thing is, people have the wrong relationship with change. Change is growth.
00:22:04
Speaker
changes healing, changes evolution, changes battle surgery. And it's just beautiful that you took something negative, turned it into a positive, and now you're on the other side of it, giving the medicine that you cultivate yourself to people who need it so they can heal and evolve and become a new medicine within their own right to write their own story and journey to help someone else. Because like you said, we need each other. It's all environmental, it's community.
00:22:32
Speaker
like We get better because we want to be better, not because we're talking about it because talk is cheap, you know? But you have been showing up day in and day out and you're not looking for the results. And I think when people want to start doing the work, they look at for results right away and then they give up too soon because it's not what they want.
00:22:51
Speaker
How will you help a person get out of a bad situation or a dark space, whether it's anxiety, depression, heartbreak, or just down on your luck? like What would you say or what would you give someone that's in that position?
The Power of Thoughts
00:23:04
Speaker
There's a thing I break down, right? Your thoughts create your thinking. Your thinking creates your feelings. Your feelings create your emotions. Your emotions create your attitude. Your attitude brings about your behavior, right? Everything goes back to thought.
00:23:14
Speaker
If your thinking is, this is worrying me, this is stressful, this is that, this is that, then you're going to develop that type of feeling and and that feeling is going to create that attitude and create that behavior. right so It's a reason why like everything I did behind the wall that kept me strong, I still do today. I work out every day, I eat right, I read every day, I write every day. right and The reason why is because I have to make sure that my mind is fortified.
00:23:40
Speaker
right? Because there's always things that's going to try to attack you, right? It's a part of life. It's always going to be rainy days, right? But when you see the silver lining, because you're optimistic, right? Instead of pessimistic, that means to go back to your mentality. I have this acronym I break down, it's called FOR, right? F-O-R-E. So, when you look at FOR, so you have for the two,
00:24:04
Speaker
Fortitude is needed to me because it reinforces the main who you are and how you do things right, it means you are a solid force that is focused and nothing can push you aside right but there's things that support your fortitude right and then you go to oh optimistic when you are optimistic person right the way that you look at life.
00:24:24
Speaker
is I'm always looking for the silver lining. I'm looking for the thing that the lesson behind the situation so I can continue to keep on moving forward. Then you have are resilient. No matter what is coming across me in my life, right? I'm going to find a way. Not give up, not complain, not make excuses, right? I'm going to find a way because I'm resilient. Then you have me. This is important, right? Because a lot of people like this.
00:24:50
Speaker
yes yeah be enthusiastic about doing the work. When you excited about something, you give 110%. When you're not, right, you do the bare minimum, right? So when you look at four, the word four means forefront. Your mentality, right, has to be thought by, right? You can't be pessimistic and think that you're going to be successful. You can't be a type of person to me that it has this negative thinking or you don't have no energy because you're not enthusiastic.
00:25:19
Speaker
to always play a part in the development of how do you move in life. When I'm faced with hard situations, for example, so I was working, right? Working at a shop, cause I'm a master mechanic too. So I was working at a shop, right? COVID happened or whatever. Boom. They had to let me go.
00:25:35
Speaker
I said, okay, all right, because I was the last person that was hired, right? Took three hours to focus and meditate on what I was going to do, right? Got up, going to make some phone calls, found a job, getting paid under the table, making more money than I made, working at that shop, working on my cars, right? I was with that guy for three weeks, pulled me up after three weeks and said, bro, I'm trying to make you a 50-50 part.
00:25:56
Speaker
He was like, I've never met anybody who is so good with customers and so good at what he does, right? You know, I would never been a type where though, like even when I first came home, I was working as a chef. When I went for the interview, right? I came in and I said, I want to be a chef. They said, why do you want to be a chef? You know what I told them? Because I already got your recipe book to memory. They was like,
00:26:19
Speaker
What? Prove it. I went in there, broke it down. It was like, how do you do that? I said, man, I'm going to work 10 times harder than everybody. So that makes me 10 times stronger than everybody. That's how focused I am. People don't want to put that type of work in. So you're not going to get those results. You feel what I'm saying? What does that focus come from? Cause that's rare. Like people don't add a mentality. Like was that like embedded in your DNA? Does it sum up being around your mentor or you was behind the wall? Like where did you get that work ethic from? It's incredible.
00:26:51
Speaker
So, one thing about is this, right? You got to challenge yourself. Yeah. Like, my mentality is this, right? Is that if I stop doing what I'm doing, then the earth will stop spinning. You got to love yourself, right? I didn't start loving myself until I was 25.
00:27:05
Speaker
and When I started to love myself, I started to work on the things that didn't love me. To have a poor work ethic doesn't help you. It doesn't help you. It doesn't care about you, right? Me, I'm like this. If you got room to complain about something, you got room to do something about it, right? So a lot of times when we complain about stuff is because we want to have a pity party, right? But look how much time you're wasting.
00:27:32
Speaker
by complaining instead of you using that time to figure out a solution to the problem, right? I should do stuff like this, right? Build stuff. When I first came home, I would sit there, right? Open up a box, take out the directions, read the directions, understand the directions, and then put it together. Why you do that? I said because directions are key. Directions create structure. Directions give you where you don't have to do it two or three times. Children today,
00:28:00
Speaker
You set a piece of paper in front of me. Do this assignment. I don't know what I'm doing. Then look at the top of the paper. I said, now read that. Oh, we're not used to following directions. There it is. You know what I'm saying? I'm just following the directions that's going to get me to success. I knew what my situation was. I'm young. I'm black. I got a record.
00:28:22
Speaker
I got tattoos all over me, and I got a mean-looking demeanor on my face, right? Everything's pegged against me. So I gotta be 10 times harder, 10 times stronger, 10 times serious than everybody, 10 times disciplined than everybody. Because I'm gonna be the last person they gonna think about getting rid of. Even at my job. Like, me doing extra that puts me in a better position, right, in the future, is not me talking. It's me setting up my future.
00:28:51
Speaker
Yeah, you're part of the 1%. The 1%ers, they do the extra work when it doesn't make sense. They put an extra time when it doesn't feel good. And when they get on these, you know, shows or get these awards, and they got this beautiful view, you don't understand their climb. And that's what I realized, like people say, you're too intense, you work too much, you're getting better. It's like, sis who?
00:29:14
Speaker
Because the people that's the best in the world are still putting in work. Till this day, Tony Rollins, he's 64, 65. He's still working on you 25. Been in the game 35 years. It's because they don't want it. Like my thing is this, right? They don't want it before they're not ready. For example, right? It's including me, my my job. I make good money where I'm at, right? But I'm doing more.
00:29:36
Speaker
Become a certified life coach. You know, my goal, like so I had a five year goal when I first came home. I accomplished that in four years. I got a 10 year goal, right? That's going to be accomplished next year, right? That's seven years I got it done.
00:29:51
Speaker
and Three years short, I mean, the 10 years expectations I gave myself, right? At the end of the day, I got to do the work. you know I got a plan, you feel what I'm saying? I got multiple extra strategies I've already implemented to get me to the next level. And when I tell people this, the first thing they say is, man, it's say all good. I said, no, it looked good because I'm doing it. You got to do it, you feel what I'm saying? But we sit around because we've been conditioned, right?
00:30:16
Speaker
to wait for other people to do the work for us. You know, like my son, so I talk about mental empowerment. So my son, right, he was like 13, 14 months. So he going up steps, he crying or whatever. I said, you got it. Keep going.
00:30:31
Speaker
You got it. He going up. I said, you got it. You got it. Come on. I'm encouraging him, right? He did it all to the top. I said, look down. You see that? You did that. He smiled. I just empowered him. He knows what he can do, right? My son right now, it ain't nothing he think he can't do because I didn't handicap him. Many of us were handicapped.
00:30:51
Speaker
because our prayers did not pour into us. They didn't even have the patience to deal with us. Many of us weren't even playing for, man, till we tolerate. When you're playing for something right, you prepare for its arrival. When you don't plan for something and it pops in it, you do whatever, you wing it.
00:31:08
Speaker
So many of us are tolerated. Like, this is my son. It's no-no when it comes to my son. Change his diaper. Gotta get done, you feel what I'm saying? Now, if I've been changing the diaper, and I mean, for the last couple of months, and you ain't help, I'ma still change his diaper, but after I'm done, I'm like, you know what? It's time for you to step in a little bit.
00:31:25
Speaker
But I'm not going to say no because the work need to be done. You've got to be the example. You feel what I'm saying? Because people people don't follow what you say, they follow what you do. Look at history, all through history, right? Every great movement was the action.
00:31:40
Speaker
The action created the support because the action created the relevancy of it that is real. If you come into your house and it's the dishes are never done and all you do is complain about it, right? It's never really going to get done. But if you come in a house, right? And the dishes are not done and you do the dishes for three months straight, right? And then you have a family meeting and say that you need help. You're going to get more support from that than you coming in just complaining about the dishes not being done.
00:32:09
Speaker
Yeah, because he did the work. So in their mind, right? You're right. Because they've already thought about it like, dang, I need to help him out. He be doing this all the time. Because people pay attention to be in there more than what you say. They're only talking. It's so simple.
00:32:24
Speaker
I tell people all the time, I say, talk is cheap because actions are expensive. We don't want to pay for those actions, right? Because we're so afraid of the cost of the action that get us from stopping the discount from talking.
00:32:40
Speaker
And a lot of times, like for me coming out here, being in LA, I didn't have no mentor, no blueprint. I had to become it. So now and I know years later, oh, I know what to do. I didn't say I know what to say. I know what to do. I know. Oh, cool.
00:32:57
Speaker
And now we are in this portal of just elevation and evolution and we're connecting because this is how we spread the tree of life through our souls and our spirits. Now, you know, you work out a lot, you lift weights.
Interconnection of Spirituality and Fitness
00:33:11
Speaker
I want you to break down and what is your relationship with spirituality and what is your relationship with fitness and how do they coincide to make you who you are today?
00:33:21
Speaker
Well, spirituality is the essence of all existence. There's energy in everything and everything is connected, nothing is separated. Even Thailand, past, present, and future is one, constantly of revolving and treating itself from itself. Fitness is important because it allows you to be able to create structure.
00:33:40
Speaker
So most people, when they look at, you know, working out, they don't understand the levels of discipline that comes with it, right? Physical discipline equates to mental and emotional discipline. If it's mental and emotional discipline, it equates, I mean, to spiritual discipline, too. When it comes to physical, right? Emotionally, we feel a certain way it affects our body. Mentally, we feel a certain way it affects our body. Spiritually, we feel a certain way it affects our body because our body is a vessel.
00:34:05
Speaker
You know, when you take care of the vessel, that means if you take care of the house, the occupants in the house, I mean, can live health, your mind, your emotions, your spirit, you know, or occupants in the house, that's your body.
00:34:17
Speaker
When you take care of it, you eat right, you exercise, you meditate, you stretch, you do all of that. It affects the way that you think, you feel, and what you become. My journey is is that you know people look at me and they see I'm physically strong. you know I've done some stuff to me and people be like, oh you had to be there to believe it. And people ask me, like why are you so strong? I said, because my spirit is strong. People look at my mind. I said, my spirit is strong. right I want this. See, when you want something to mean, it's not just a mental thing to mean. It's a spiritual thing that's calling. It's essential for me to be strong in every area that I am. Because when your mind is weak, it attacks you.
00:34:59
Speaker
emotionally. right When you're emotionally weak, it attacks you spiritually. When you're go to open your spirit is weak, the mean it attacks you everywhere. You got to strengthen these areas. right So you look at people like this, you can get people that are overweight. right They are overweight because they overeat.
00:35:15
Speaker
That means that there's something going on that is compelling them to mean to medicate themselves through food. Same thing with somebody that has substance abuse problems. So a lot of times we think that, oh substance abuse, it's a physical thing, it's not, it's a mental thing.
00:35:29
Speaker
It's a mental, it's an emotional, it's a spiritual thing. I mean, it's something inside the mane that is hurting that needs some type of relief. So when you have people to mane that exercise and get healthy, right? Man, they feel good about themselves. They confidence go through the roof. You know, they got a glow tone.
00:35:48
Speaker
You know, so, but the thing is, is that you can't just work on one area, right? So there's a quote that I have, it says, never highlight your stress and overlook your weaknesses. Because in time, your weaknesses will become null avoid by the attacks of your weaknesses. So a lot of times what we do is you have people that just work on their body, but they aren't happy because mentally and spiritually, they're not in a good space.
00:36:15
Speaker
You know, but when you work on the entire person, you find balance, right? You know, so you got to work on the whole person, right? You've got a mental, you got emotional, you got a spiritual, you know, you got a physical self. So I always ask my clients and say, look at where you are in these five areas, mental, physical, spiritual, emotional, and financial, right? When you look at all those areas, right, and you can recognize exactly where you are, then you can start building the work to balance your life.
00:36:41
Speaker
You know, and you can work on each one of these areas every day. You can spend an hour on each one of those areas every day. You know, and it's simple, right? Go to the gym for an hour, work out. You can knock out your physical. But also to me, it helps you in emotional and it helps you mentally and spiritually.
00:36:58
Speaker
Each area supports each area. Each area can attack each area too. So you look at the mental, you read something, some educational, something inspirational, right? That does something for your mind, but it also does something to your spirit. It does something to you emotionally. It relieves certain stress in your body, so it affects your body, right? You look at spiritual. Do a service, a good deed towards someone. Makes your spirit feel good, right? But also makes you feel good mentally, emotionally, as well as domain. You get the endorphin feel domain to help you out physically.
00:37:28
Speaker
You've got to work on every area. Every area counts, not just one. I realize that in relationships, in a relationship, we focus on love, but they don't focus on communication. Or they focus on intimacy, but they don't focus on understanding. right like There's so many pillars within the vessel of a relationship, and then they forget that life is not all money.
00:37:50
Speaker
Life is not all what it looked like. It's like, what does it feel like? What are you thinking? What are you doing? Where's your behaviors coming from? And who is enforcing? And what are your primary schools? Who are you listening to? What books are you reading? What conversations are you having? What are all your thoughts when no one's around? And I think, you know, like you said, spiritual fitness and spirituality is all of life. It's all one. in sydneyness And I mean, my ideal is bringing it all together to create the highest capacity that you can be in this lifetime.
00:38:18
Speaker
And I think what you have done is created such a vessel that can serve all people, no matter what age, no matter what size, class, demographic. And I think you're so relatable because you know what it is to be human. And sometimes you know on this side of life, for me, being in Hollywood, being around successful, wealthy people,
00:38:39
Speaker
Some of those folks never been on the dark side. They never been on the low end. So not that they have to go to, but they don't understand it enough to relate to be human. It's just parts of them are really so what they get in that dark space, they run because they think it's not life. No, this is part of life. They suppress and neglect.
00:38:57
Speaker
It's just amazing that you can go through something as yourself and come out on top and be at the top of the mountain and say, damn, I want to climb more mountains. So to the people listening, where can we find you? How can we get into your frequency? Where can we go purchase the books? How can we connect or appreciate your energy and what you give to the world?
Connect with Adisa
00:39:17
Speaker
Information is all Amazon, you know Amazon, I got my books through Amazon. I got social media, IG is action figure, yo. Facebook is William Adisa Dempsey, and I just published my life coaching practice. I got my website, it's onc42. Onc42, okay.
00:39:37
Speaker
like the a cross, the cross, the work that I do essentially, like like I'm in the community. So the company I work for, what I do, you know, dealing with people that come home from incarceration, substance abuse, right? And helping them transform their lives. You know, I have a ah a youth group, I've been running for five years now that I get with them twice a week, you know, and build with them on current development and male development.
00:40:01
Speaker
A lot of the work I do is close to the vest, but I want to step out there and really start branching out. So the launch of my life coaching practice is going to be in 2025 officially, right? But right now I'm just doing like Zoom and online classes and stuff for people. But I just want to be able to get this information out there. If you look at my social media outlets, everything on it, number positivity, nothing about elevating, pushing people forward, right?
00:40:30
Speaker
That's what it about. A lot of times, you know, people get on social media to dump their garbage on there. And you got to be mindful of what you are prescribing to because it could be setting you up for the calamity down the road. Everybody shouldn't have the right to speak into your life.
00:40:45
Speaker
you know, because everybody isn't for your best interests. Most people out there ain't even for their own best interests because if they were, they wouldn't be doing the things they're doing or surrounding themselves around the self surrounded people they're surrounding themselves with and putting theirself in the spaces that put them at risk. If you are looking at me for transformation or looking for a better way of looking at life, all you got to do is hit me up, make it happen because time is something we can't get back. The more time you waste,
00:41:15
Speaker
Pretending like you got everything figured out is the more time that you can't get back. And I think, you know, just to top that off, and this is why you're here, to tell people that the time is now, to take action, to execute, to apply, to integrate, to embody, from people just to wake up. I believe in the world of social media, we need more authenticity, and I think that's what you embody so well, because you've been through so much, but at the same time, you understand life, you understand pain, you understand success. And I think success, love, and all these things is really true acceptance that people want from themselves.
00:41:49
Speaker
and we're so busy looking outwardly. So I just want to say thank you. I want to give you your flowers for the man you are, the man you've become, and the man you're going to continue to be. And to your family, your friends, anyone that's a part of your board sex, I send them love. I send them like in positivity because we need more men uplifted like you in a space where you're more visible. People see you more, they hear you more, they feel you more, and it's because it's for the greater good of humanity. And I always say,
00:42:16
Speaker
life don't happen to us. It happened for us for the greater good of the life we're here to serve and be. So thank you once again. People follow him, Instagram action figure, yo, right? Get the book on Amazon, the juggernaut and battle surgery. I got to get the book and ah people look for him. See him more as we move towards 2025 or 2024 and now is what matters. Thank you guys. Spiritual Fitness podcast, share, subscribe, like,
00:42:44
Speaker
Get you some of this Miracle Season merch. It's miracleseason.co, behalf of Use Promo Cole, MC's and all cats. And we out. This is another spiritual fitness podcast.
00:42:58
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 blending spirituality and physical wellness, you can strengthen your body, mind, and soul. 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.