Devon Franklin FULL Episode | Worth a Conversation with Jeezy

[Music] what's up y'all it's your boy jay geezy jenkins and welcome to another episode of work for conversation my guest tonight is a film producers whose movies have grossed over 175 million dollars in the box office he's also a minister and a new york times bestselling author he's tapping in with me to talk about his new book live free ladies and gentlemen please welcome the one and only devon franklin what's up my brother man i'm feeling good it's good to see you dog we finally get a chance to meet like face to face but zoom i guess [Laughter] exactly exactly man um watching how you moving and seeing what you got going on and um you know i i didn't really know how in tune you were with religion until i just started people a lot of things that you were saying but i love how the fact that you like um you keep it balanced you know what i'm saying because you can still tell you got some ice in your veins and you still move around and and you understand the culture but at the same time you got a lot of principles and values and morals like where did that come from was your upbringing uh man yeah you know i'm from uh from oakland you know from the bay area [Laughter] yeah man so you know um my my i grew up originally in richmond uh which is right you know next to oakland and berkeley and then the church that i grew up in right there yeah you know you know um the church that i grew up in was is in east oakland uh right there in 70th and macarthur so you know it was really my upbringing was a combination of like you know knowing what was going on in the culture knowing what's happening in the streets but my mother made a very clear path for us she was like listen even though you know that's there we're going to put you on this path so it was never a situation where i understood religion independent of what was going on it was always me learning the value of religion and faith in god but still having a perspective on how to just move and deal in the world man right and that kind of you know it's crazy because my grandma if it wasn't for my grandmother i don't think i would know anything about religion or faith and it's crazy because she used to make me walk to church with her and you know i just thought church was this thing she did on sunday to put on her good clothes because that was a whole day she had the hats she had the dresses and i'll just go with her and i'm so thankful for that because sometimes like when things get a little cloudy all i got is those lessons i learned walking and talking with her to church and what i heard in church and me knowing that there's um just something else out there like a higher power and that's crazy because like richmond in oakland is is solid that's a different type of town so if you're keeping your faith in your religion out there like you you got a whole nother upbringing brother man man we had to have faith to make it i'm telling you that like when you um and it's crazy because just now just just hearing you say that i can kind of see where you like you're able to miss like movies and ministry and i think that's i think that's dope like tell me tell me how did that become your formula yeah well um you know it all kind of came organically you know my father um i'm the middle child of three boys and so growing up uh my father you know basically you know became an alcoholic and just you know left the house and so you know we never knew when we would see him he was always kind of in and out and um you know long story short when i was nine years old he died of a heart attack when he was 36 and um you know it was just devastating for me and my brothers and my mother and you know he kind of left my mother to raise us along with my grandmother my grandmother's seven sisters and you know my mother didn't have enough money for therapy and so you know what what became my therapy was going to church and then you know watching movies and tv shows so you know movies like back to the future and the rocky franchise and the color purple these are some of my favorite movies growing up in the cosby show in a different world those are my favorite tv shows and so it was really going to church and watching entertainment that really helped me navigate this very difficult period and when as i was coming through that i started to get really like curious about entertainment you know how does it work you know who who's making these movies and tv shows give me the understanding of what's going on and so the more curious i became the more passion that i had but the big thing is that as i got into my teenage years and i started telling people hey i want to go to hollywood i want to make a career in entertainment the folks at the church were like well you can't do that that's sodom and gomorrah hollywood is the devil's playground you're going to lose your faith so i was like well listen i'ma go anyway because i got a seat you know like i can't let my life be determined by you so what happened was that i was i was sensitive to the fact that people thought i was going to lose my faith and i was like i don't know i don't believe that so at 18 years old i went to usc got went down to l.a majored in business minored in film that freshman year i got an internship interview at the company that managed will smith it was run by benny medina and james lasseter i know you know benny um and so i got in that internship interview and that we were you know the interview was going fine and they said is there anything else you want us to know and at the end of that interview i said listen i observe the sabbath so if taking this job would require me to work friday night sundown to saturday night sundown i won't take the internship and in that moment they were like wow okay and they said cool no problem so i took the internship and that internship laid the foundation for the rest of my career and as i grew up in the business i was always vocal about my faith and also committed to learning so the combination of movies and ministry just started organically they've never been independent from me it's always just been something that i am it's someone who i am and as i got to become an executive for so many pictures and worked on pursuit of happiness and seven pounds in hancock and the karate kid and jumping the broom and sparkle and heaven is free and all these movies everybody always knew that my faith was important to me and then i was able to make content that was reflective of that because i knew because going back to that kid entertainment inspired me if it wasn't for entertainment i wouldn't have made it through the death of my father and so i wanted to be a part of the system that could give people that same hope and that same inspiration that's that's crazy because even like like going back to what my grandmother taught me what i learned in church that was the only thing when i got into my line of uh work that kept me solid they kept the integrity there because i had something to to reference back and i always thought to myself because that was the thing like when you get into something you got to know it's temptation is is yeah his penitentiary chances is you know all these different things right you gotta you gotta have some type of mental gps or either you know uh uh uh uh address if you will where you're trying to go and anything that doesn't have anything to do with that you can't take any sudden right turns left turns you got to stay on the course and it's hard because if you don't have faith you really don't have a foundation to stand on that's what i'm saying that's right and it's like you know even with my humble beginnings even now i find myself like a lot of times when things happen or things come across my my desk and i go how do i feel about that you know and i'm just looking at my old self as well because just like i'm still who i am i want to grow but i don't ever want to lose myself and that's the one thing yeah um you're from the base so you know shakir stewart which was one of my my great friends that passed and he's always we used to always talk about just keeping it silent with yourself and he's always yeah it's easy like no matter what you do like just stay who you are and and even now when i make different moves i can tell you know what people that's been rocking with me for a while to go like yo that that ain't what we know you for and i'm like that's the point exactly it's true to me so i don't when i get up in the morning i can look in the mirror and i can feel good about what i'm doing because it's an accomplishment for me so i can still play this game um that we all play like like you do in hollywood you can play that game but you haven't lost what makes you you and i i commend you on that because that's not easy so so what does what does ministry need to look like to impact this current generation because i've you know i find myself you know i might be in the gym and and i feel that i need it i just go on to um one of those podcasts and go check out td jake's uh yeah so for people because i like you know what i i need to feel somebody's work and i find myself going on youtube and just you know finding different um uh pastors in their messages and just kind of pulling from it but what do you what do you feel like ministry means to this generation you know i think that ministry um still has an incredible value um i also feel that there's a higher demand in this generation for a stronger connection between ministry and authenticity okay uh you know in the generation that you know i kind of grew up in and the generation that my mother grew up in it was kind of like uh do as i do i mean do as i say don't do as i do right and like well why should we gotta go to church because i said so right that's just what it was like growing up we didn't have any options like i said so but this generation is that doesn't work you know so i think the demand from ministry standpoint is authenticity they want to know that the people that they're listening to are actually living the life they're talking about and no longer can a preacher get up and just you know or a minister get up and just talk theoretically but then people see them living somewhere different you know we're in a culture right now where you know especially these generations younger generation man they want hope they want inspiration they want god they just are a little um skeptical sometimes of the messengers because there's been a lot of you know issues in the church and a lot of you know scandals and whatnot so i do believe that ministry right now is needed uh having a relationship with god is is critical knowing faith i think is is like i know i wouldn't be where i am without it um but i think that the the key is to let people see you know this is why i live the way i live is like listen it's not about perfection it's about authenticity so i'm like i don't want you to hear me talk about god and then you see no evidence of god in how i live right like i that's i'm like no if you're gonna if you're gonna see me talk about god then i want you to turn the volume down on everything you see me doing just look observe can you see the evidence of what i'm talking about because we are in a show me generation not a tell me generation and the more that we can show the value of faith and show the real the real reason to have a relationship with god and show what that means i think that the more ministry will remain relevant but if ministry does not take the path of authenticity then we could find ourselves in a place where ministry loses its impact and its influence in the culture right right because now i don't know what i'm believing that's right it's it's it's crazy because like when you look at you know you look at instagram you look at social media see everybody trying to live their best life they don't really incorporate god a lot in that you know what i'm saying don't really sit there and thank god for what they have and it's almost like i did it myself and i'm good and everybody trying to live this persona and i just wonder with the persona like how much of that is real meaning like how how how much value how many values can you really have and what are your morals like if you're willing to go out here and really like pretend to be somebody else to be accepted man dude but that's what that's why i wrote this book man because so often first of all social media it's curated meaning like we everybody who posts on social media gets a chance to decide what pictures they want to post maybe they take 20 pictures just to post one what videos so the whole thing to a degree is manipulated and manufactured so so that that manufacturing is like okay i'm gonna manufacture the image or the persona that that i feel is going to help me have acceptance and influence and advancement now the disconnect comes when that manufactured image is not really who we are right and ultimately one of the reasons why i wrote this book live free is because i want people to live free of creating the persona that they think is going to take them to their destiny it won't the only path the only the like if we get on the path of destiny that's the path that already has everything we need and and if we get on the path of of trying to create the persona that persona path we find ourselves less happy we find ourselves discontent we find ourselves frustrated angry why because we're trying to keep up the image but the image has limited amount of blessings we can manufacture blessings but the blessings that god has for us are far greater than any blessing we can manufacture so i wrote this book because i want people to get on the path of their true self no matter what people expect no matter what people think what's in your heart yes and not let social media become the medium of you becoming someone you know you're not just just for likes don't live for likes live for truth i like that i don't live for life we definitely got to get into that book um what i was going to ask you so let's just say you're doing all this to fit in right with with you so you you're posting these cars it's money there's life there's everything but not realizing that everybody else that's in there with it with you is doing the same so we all know there's no honor amongst thieves so it's just like what what like where's there's no integrity in it so if you're willing to do anything to you know stay relevant um you know to stay in the topic of conversation to be in in the in the winner's circle to be liked to be accepted all these things like how how empty do you think these people really are when it's when when when they go home at night and they lay down and they go to sleep and they know tomorrow rents do they just you know the last 800 on some diys and and and you sit there and you and and you and i monkeys just tell me all the time like fake it till you make it i just like i don't like that advice because if i make it i'm gonna be fake i don't i don't i don't wanna i don't get that so i would rather not even indulge in in trying to fit in and do my things so that i can maintain my peace rather than trying to be you know in the mix almost like you know you you want to be a on the basketball team or something so you're taking all the pics and you got all the gear on and the dope shoes and the and and the headband and the whatever then when it's time to play in the game no skills and when that whistle blow it's game on and right and i sit back and i watch you know you know these kids like you know they're out here risking their lives to to be that you know what i mean to and and one thing i loved about really learning about bob marley like you know we all know he was a you know icon and he was world now but what i loved about him the most is that he stood for something he had principal and all his people from where he was from um yeah and it's like they already felt rich without the accolades when we come back devon franklin and i will be talking about his new book live free right here with the conversation let's get it welcome back to work the conversation devon franklin is here we're talking this new book live free live free talk to me yeah man you know it's something i want to i want to just sit on what you hit what you touched on and then and then i can tie it into the book um i i think that one of the the the reasons why so many people um find relief and release in you know doing it for the gram and creating this image is because there's a lot of pain associated with being your true self at times especially if you grew up and your authentic self was never accepted so if you grew up in a home where let's say you had moments when you were creative or you did what you thought you know you felt you want to do and somebody said shut up right get in line don't cry right that's not how you know young boys are supposed to act that's how young girls act sounds very familiar right right so so then what happens is from that young age through through violence or through put down or or through um you know negative conversation sometimes you can be socialized into believing that your true self is not accepted so then when you talk about social media it's like oh i can create an image of who i want to be and find all the accolades even though it's different than who i am and so that that that relief and release that that sometimes social media can provide a lot of it comes from a pain of sometimes people not really feeling like they they can be who they really are and that they know how to do it because for so long they've never done it right and and we live in a culture sometimes that rewards you talk about the way you said the winner's circle at the end of the day you know as a society we're the ones that say okay if you reach a certain status that's the winner's circle but if you got there and it's not who you are it's the loser sir absolutely because no matter what we say okay you have a certain amount of money you got a certain amount of accolades okay fine but if that's not who you are you're in the wrong circle and so speaking with tony rob speaking with tony robbins we talk all the time and he was like geez you wouldn't believe how many billionaires that i have to coach that are just the most unhappy people in the whole wide world like they're just so unhappy they don't know what they're doing themselves and you just sit there you go a billionaire i'm just like [Laughter] but he's like man give me a billion right manage that you know you know but but but to me and that's why i respect your approach because and even my approach is like i just want to give people information to help them understand how to accept themselves and know that they are enough and not try to do things because you see in my generation i lost so many friends um to prison to to being murdered to try to live a certain lifestyle that can't be sustained it cannot yeah you know what i'm saying it's not there's no way possible and the chances that i took and and found a career to open up some other doors for me you know i took those chances knowing that okay it's going to go either one or two ways either i'm going to make it through or i'm not but i'm willing to accept either way but as long as i keep my morals and values and then you get to a place where okay you got something that's sustainable and but then but but i look at it like this because my uncle used to always tell me like you know you you can be you can get a brand new car and a brand new outfit but mentally you can still have the same mindset and problems so you'll just be this you just be a a guy with a new outfit and a new car with the same mindset you buy a brand new house and you're doing that with the same demons you know and they'll hunt you every day and night so i think the real the real wealth is is working on yourself and understanding because when you see people that just naturally happen you sit there it needs to be a long time i sit there and be like how in the hell all day i don't get it i'm saying like i was getting up in the morning gang banging on on bacon man i was mad at the bacon like i was just mad because life had dealt me a bad hand and i was just like yo why me and the minute i started just to understand like you know only you can make this better for yourself who you surround yourself with the type of conversations you have the way you take care of yourself um being present because it was a lot of times i should be at dinners with people and i would be thinking about everything else in the world but what i was doing you know what i'm saying but i didn't know how to be present you know what i'm saying it was it was it was to my kids and i just started realizing that you know you got to sit down and just have that you know that one or two hours where nothing else comes in and distracts you and that's that's that's real happiness cause you're gonna hear your baby laugh you're gonna see a you know scraper need and she's gonna come to you and say daddy this and that and you just start understanding wow this is what it's really about family and people and waking up every day and choosing to be happy over using all this other stuff that you can't maintain or sustain because there it is clearly it can't sustain happiness right yeah it's real right man what i what i love what you're saying you know and and uh i talk about this in the book you know that that at the end of the day we have to be the ones to create our happiness right and a lot of times you know we're trying to outsource our happiness to people circumstances and situations and i believe that at the end of the day we have to be the ones to decide what makes us happy what creates our happiness and so that we are the ones that are in control of that right because whenever we're outsourcing it you know we're outsourcing it to this person well guess what that person might make you happy for a minute but what happens when they do stuff that you don't like oh then you cut them off or there's a problem right or let's say you know i i'm relying upon you know making a certain amount of money to be happy okay well what's what are you doing when a certain month you know your funds dip does that mean you're not happy and you're not content so one of the reasons i wrote this book and when i talk about live free living free means that we are not under the emotional physical or mental control of anyone or anything that we are the ones that get to determine the expectations that we live by we don't allow everyone else's expectations to become our expectations and when we live free that's the real path of peace that's the real past path of happiness that's the real path of true freedom and one of the reasons why i wrote this book is because so many people are not living free they're living for their parents they're living for their spouses they're living for their kids they're living for their church they're living for the culture they're living for the job everybody but themselves and for me you know i thought about this question that i posed to everybody i say you know i thought about my life and i said man could i live with getting to the end of my life and god said great you did everything that was expected but you didn't do what was destined and i could not live with that reality so that's why i said listen i got to start making changes now to become my true self and i want to encourage everybody to do the same because you you don't get anything out of doing what's expected unless it's unless it aligns with what's in your heart right and if it's not in your heart you might have to tell your mother i love you mom but i can't do that right you know you might have to tell your spouse hey babe i love you but you know what that ain't me tell me you don't tell me three three changes that you made that you felt like was detrimental to to where you at right now great so so one of the things for me and this was a catalyst to write in the book so number one was that i talk about this in the book that i i wrote this because no matter all the successes i was having in entertainment and all the sexes i've had in my life i wasn't happy right i was discontent i was frustrated i was mad you know movies would come out and and you know and they would be relatively successful but i wouldn't be happy why and i started to say man you know what there's something going on here and i realized oh my expectations are so high wow and i am i am attaching my personal value to the success of a movie right to the success of a book right whatever happens on social media so i am allowing these things to be the puppet master and control my life and i got to the point man where i was so frustrated i said man something's got to change so number one i said okay i got to get control of my expectations why am i putting so heavy expectations on on myself and then i had to go back you know you know i have a therapist i got a life coach man because i'm like man i need help doing this work right so as i went back i realized oh got it when i was a kid coming out of the death of my father one of the ways that i found acceptance was through achievement so if i did well in school everybody said good job devon right if i you know played well in basketball oh good job devon if i was active on student government oh good job devon attaboy so i started to create a performance-based uh life and i found my all my value in achievement and it got to the point where people started calling me in middle school mr perfect and so at first i was like yo that's dope oh mr perfect but then as i got older i said oh mr perfect is a prison because i'm not perfect right but i'm putting up this image right i'm trying to present this image that oh i got it all together and i'm doing it all perfectly and i know i'm not yes so i had to get to the point where i was in enough pain that i had to make a different choice and so i started to to look at my uh expectations i started to go through the process of releasing as many expectations as possible why do i have this expectation why do i have that expectation and what difference does it make whether i have a hit movie or a hit book or somebody likes what i posted it doesn't matter i got to find the value here and if i keep searching out there i'm gonna keep searching for the rest of my life so i had to find my value in here and then three i had to start having some difficult conversations i had to learn the value of saying no you know so because it's like sometimes people would ask me to do things and because that mr perfect persona was a people pleaser so somebody asked me to do something i might not want to do it but i don't want to make them mad i don't want to disappoint them so what do i do i say yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes i guess i'm guessing i was guessing myself out of the moment and i was over obligating myself and i was the one having to pay for it tired no energy frustrated because i'm over here making everybody else happy and it wasn't in my heart so i had to learn the power of no i had to politely say yo that's not you know what god's not calling me to do that you know what hey i know somebody else who could do that for you no no you know what i'ma pray on that why because i had to take control back of my life and i had to find the path to living free and that's why and those are some of the tips and tools that i put in the book and that's why i wrote it i love that and it's crazy because uh just hearing you say that um i i was one of the same you know i wouldn't miss the perfect i definitely won the class president i'll tell you that maybe the hood president but but um i you know i can relate to that because i you know i'm a libra of course but i just always wanted to be the one that people can call on or that if i do a job i want to do it you know above and beyond and i'm gonna give it my all and even with musically you know i was you know i came up out of the the the the hood you know i mean you know no business sense whatever no high school education got my ged when i was locked up and i came out and and i i was like you know if i don't know anything i believe in myself so i know i can do this sure so all these years i worked all the money i invested in myself everything i did um it was rush but the minute i got my first platinum plaque i it was like i had survivors remorse you know what i'm saying i was just like you know you think about all this money and the first time i got you know uh you know you know i was always in to get money but i was a guy that couldn't get my own house and my my name on my car my name because i was living another life you know what i mean and i was just like the minute i could put a house in my name and i did it and i wasn't happy just like this this and i was just doing all these things and and and getting these awards and getting these opportunities and you know um doing these tours you know i said it like you know i grew up listening to jay-z now i'm headlining a tour with them and when the tour is over i'm just like uh and i just couldn't figure it out and like you said i had to get outside of my comfort zone i just had to start talking to people that aren't people that you would associate me with yes yes expectations are strong belief about what should happen okay a strong belief about what should happen and so that that should is what gets us in trouble and so i talk about in the book you know here's how we know what we should believe what will happen in the future what we shouldn't uh you have to ask two questions what's in your control and if the expectation involves someone else has it been communicated so a lot of times our expectations are unrealistic why because we're trying to control things out of our control right and and when you think about you know our career or you say you know or you're dealing with somebody else one of the greatest frustrations in a relationship is trying to control somebody that we have no control over so you know it's like oh i want you to do this i want you to do that well guess what the only thing we control is ourselves that's it so um the other part about control specific to like career is that you know talk about this in the book no matter how hard we try we do not always control the result what we control is the process right so when we treat the process as the result we usually ultimately get the result that we're seeking so the process as the result yes okay so so like for example you know you were talking about you know earlier you know selling out selling records you know or you know or now streams right no matter how hard you try you can't actually make someone listen to the music you create correct but what you can do is you can control your lyrics you can control the production you control what type of themes and ideas you bring to the music you can control the marketing and publicity you can control your interaction with the fans so the more you put into that process the greater the result will be but so often we focus on oh i want to get the result and we overlook the process well the process is all we got control over that's it and too often in life we are frustrated and we have unset and unrealistic expectations because we're trying to control some we don't control so i talk about this in the book that when we talk about what we should believe will happen i believe that if you're if it's in your control you can believe it but if it's not you may hope that it happens but don't make it an expectation because that expectation that's out of your control ultimately can lead you to become devastated right because you are believing something's going to happen that you do not control and you're acting as if it will and as if it should and when it doesn't man we're devastated right the second thing is is communication you got to communicate right we can't just have these unspoken expectations of everybody in every situation and not express and say hey you know is this what we can is this what i can expect from you you know is this what i can expect in this situation your group of peers yeah but you know the thing about it is it's hard because you know even as a black man i couldn't you know if this is why i rewinded you know 10 years ago i couldn't go and sit down and talk to my homies and be like yo you know i'm about to drop this project i hope it does well and you know and i don't really know when i'm kind of nervous you know i can see them looking at me like what like because they look at you like god you know what i'm saying like you know what you're doing like you you ma and it's like if you give them any sense of you know uncertainty it's almost like you lose respect you know and i know that might sound ignorant to say but it's just like no no no that's real yeah you know what i mean it's just like because everybody looks to you for the courage in the heart and you can have the courage in the heart but i love what you're saying about having the courage in the heart but just knowing that you can't control the outcome there you go exactly exactly and and we go hard for the process man like i mean that process is rich that process is everything and that process is rewarding because if we only focus on the result you talk about getting a platinum play all right well you got the platinum plaque but if in the process you weren't really in the process you would just put a platinum plaque you got the plaque and it was like okay oh i'm gonna be honest then i was just for the plaque i'm keeping i was like yeah so what we doing next but what are we doing next right right but as now you know like now you know all my plaques and you know in my in my meeting room and and sometimes i just kind of look back at it when i'm on calls and when i'm like yo like i really put some points on the board and the only thing that i do regret is that i didn't enjoy the process as much you know i'm saying because i had expectations and when it didn't hit that i did kind of feel a way like maybe i didn't do something right maybe i didn't hit it that's right maybe i should have thought it this way and and like you're saying to live free i would encourage people to understand that you don't lose you learn and that's what i had everything i had to learn you know what i'm saying i just started learning okay yeah what can i do better for myself you know what i mean that was yeah well look you know and i'll tell you like the truth like between um uh uh 103 in the recession what i've done better for myself is i started working out and i noticed that my shows used to be all the fellas in the front you know all the gangsters but then that switch they start being all the ladies i'm like oh okay i'm doing better okay right so that was something that that made me feel proud because now i'm like you know i'm taking care of myself and that's the part of the process that i think i kicked the survivor's remorse because i did something outside of trying to get the plaque i did something for myself yeah i did something that took dedication i did something that took discipline and and i did it you know what i mean yeah yeah so it was a good i love it one thing that you said earlier which i thought was which i thought was fascinating is like um the expectations that have come along with the gz persona right you know and and what i love about what i see doing is as you start to live free you're like getting more comfortable with living in a way that sometimes goes against the jeezy persona oh yeah absolutely you know um which is which is dope man because that persona is so strong yes um but for it to not become a prison for you and to see you living free and like yo man i'm out on a 20-mile bike ride that's like right that's awesome right and for me you know even when i got into the game i wanted to motivate inspire and and get people to um understand that you got to think outside the box and going back to what you said earlier about uh ministry is is how can you preach these things if you're not doing them you know what i mean so so i have to be i have to be the front runner and that's one thing about a leader they're up front and they got to take whatever criticism come with it and you know you know and it comes and i just look at myself but i'm happy that's the difference so i see the criticism coming i was like man i'm like yo but i'm happy i'm like okay that's cool yeah i get it yeah yeah yeah yeah i love it i love it right you know when you said that what why why i related to that so deeply is like you know i had this vision it was almost like god gave me this uh vision as related to uh like the persona that i created so he gave me this vision and it was like okay that persona like i was i the real devon was in an uber being driven by that persona so mr perfect is driving tell me about it yeah yeah so mr perfect is driving but we get to this part in the journey where the road ahead is very steep and it's incredibly narrow right and mr perfect turns around to me says you have to get out and go if you want to go the rest of the way you're gonna you're you are gonna have to go by yourself so it was like my authentic self in order to go to the next level of life in order to go further where god created me to go i couldn't use the person anymore i had to go as my true self because the person that the persona no longer serves you exactly yes exactly it took me as far as it could take me absolutely and and it's fine we could stay right there and live live our life right there but if i want to go further i had to let my true self out of the persona right and go and that's what i'm that's the journey i'm on right now right you know of really trying to be my true self my authentic self no matter what people think no matter what people say and really trying to encourage everybody else to do the same and so when i hear you talk about that jeezy persona and breaking out of it it just reminded me of that vision so so live free i'm i'm i'm i'm this guy i got a pretty decent job got a you know great family but um i'm i'm not happy i'm not understanding why you know every day to me seems like a struggle even though things are going pretty well but i'm not living my life to the fullest i pick up live free what am i expecting oh man you're expecting the manual yeah that's what that's what i need yeah this man listen when you pick up live free this book is the manual on how to find contentment how to be happy you know how to ask some questions if i'm not living the life that i want to live whose life am i living and and when did i start living that life you know and and if i'm not living for myself and i'm not living for god who am i living for so when you pick up live free i mean this is it's more than a book it's really a manual on how to restart and reorient your life and really allow who you really are to come forward and the book gives you uh strategies tips and tools on how to do it the book is separated into four different sections so you know how to set personal expectations cultural expectations relational expectations and professional expectations so this book gives you every area where your expectations uh can wreak the most havoc the live free will allow you and help you to know how to deal with expectations in every area and then set those expectations for yourself so you know i gotta ask so is there is there a area for expectations in marriage yes my brother i got you talk to me give me a little insight well listen congratulations you know you know i've known you for a long time man i'm happy for y'all man thank you bro and listen what i'll say is don't don't do what i did okay when i got married okay you know i had these unspoken expectations right so megan and i got married i had this unspoken expectation that she was gonna cook so at first it was fine because she cooked she was cooking but but you know i talked about this in the book she only had one recipe for baked chicken that was it we baked chicken every night but i said no problem i love the baked chicken so she ended up leaving to go to new york to shoot a tv show when she comes back i was expecting the baked chicken i would come home day after day from work nothing in the oven nothing in the microwave nothing refrigerate nothing she wasn't cooking so i started to get mad i'm like yo don't you know like you're back you're supposed to cook like you know you're my wife like you supposed don't you love me why aren't you cooking unspoken expectation right so then i started to judge her heart and and her this position i said well maybe she don't love me that much maybe she'll understand what a wife's supposed to do here i am here's what we do we have these unspoken expectations and then we act as if we talk to the person and then we judge them as if they agreed to it when they never knew to begin with right so finally we got to the point where she said what's wrong with you because my attitude was real salty and i just blurted out why aren't you making a chicken she looked at me and she was like look i'll be honest i could feel the weight of your expectation and it took the joy out of it for me wow when i started cooking i was just cooking because i loved you but then it felt like it became an obligation and then all of a sudden you started to treat me a little bit differently when i didn't do it and i just didn't have the joy to do it anymore and i said oh right my fault because here i am i am making what was supposed to be unconditional love i have now made our love conditioned on some baked chicken i've allowed chicken to become a condition of our love not the baked chicken so i said yo i said listen i said first of all babe i'm sorry please forgive me and i said from from this day forward let's take the expectation off of who cooks i may cook you may cook we may order out but no longer are we going to put that weight of who's going to cook and then judge each other by that's done so from that date of this man we haven't worried about it um but so i talk about that in the book as a way for couples especially in marriage to make sure you're communicating what your expectation is and not just assuming so when you just because they love you they don't know and so you when you say unspoken that means because you're not communicating exactly okay exactly so if i was gonna if i was gonna reset that expectation if i was gonna turn back the clock i would have asked her hey bae you know um can i expect you to cook can we talk about that you know like i love when you cook it really makes me feel very loved can i expect that or not and how should we sort that out because i don't want to expect you to do something you don't want to do right if we had started to have that conversation it would have made a healthier you know dynamic instead of me just assuming that she was going to do it right because a lot of times we act as if they just because they love us doesn't mean they know right and that's critical especially as you're you know starting in this marriage like you can't over communicate and you can't just assume that oh yeah well she loves me she's she gonna know i like certain things certain ways she may not right she may need you and you may and you may need her to really communicate and to teach and instruct oh baby this is how i like this that's how i like that oh okay cool got it i didn't know that but now that i know and because i want to contribute to your happiness it's going to actually impact what i do i love that contributing to you to your happiness that's the i love that phrase so right now like healthy relationship goals how you think like pop culture is affected relationship goals because now it's like if you ain't buying her bentley every other month if she can't put some burgers on the ground it's like you ain't doing your job you know i mean personally i'd rather buy some land okay there you go there you go i don't know like what do you think pop culture has done for for relationship goes because when i see things it's almost and i'm not against that because everybody should want to do something nice for their for their significant other but like when you see it it's just like who spends the most what's the most outlandish thing you can buy a person yeah or what's what's the most outlandish thing you can get or overdo it and and i'm not opposed to it because everybody has different love languages so i respect that but i'm saying like what do you think pop culture has done the relationship goes it used to be if you take somebody to the movies and go get a cherry coke you know what i mean you were good that's my difference afterwards you're good yeah you did yourself right there's a whole different monster now well what i think the pop culture has created unrealistic expectations around relationship goals okay and and one of the reasons why you know i have a whole section in this book about relationships is because i don't want anyone to look outside of themselves and say i want that [Music] why because that all you can see is the presentation right no matter what relationship on the outside i think looks cool i don't know the full story you don't know the full story good or bad so it's dangerous when you're in a relationship and you're looking at couples in pop culture and say ooh i want that no no even megan and i we wrote a book years ago called the weight and it's it's you know really impacted a lot of people in a positive way but i i resist like hey don't don't make us your relationship goals you know we're happy to to give you some instruction on what may work but we are all trying to figure this thing out right so i think pop culture is creating these unrealistic ideas and ideals that both men and women are feeling the pressure to live up to i think the most successful relationships come when both people decide we're going to become our best self for each other right we're going to figure out what works for us and we're not going to let somebody doing it for the gram disrupt our relationship because we're taking their expectation and making it ours nah we're going to create our own expectations that's real because boy i'm tell you whew it's rough out there for a few people man i understand you got to live for free anymore man listen um no i i definitely respect you know like like i said we all come from humble beginnings and when you get into some type of success and it's crazy that those things represent success and then that we weave them into um relationships and what what what what intimacy means and and and and just partnership and i just you know i would encourage anyone to just to look at the um the uh uh just look at the full picture as far as longevity you know absolutely you know and don't base things you know just on what someone can do you know i talk to my daughter about this all the time everybody's not worth your time like you know everybody's not worth your attention or or even you know you you you're taking the time to acknowledge certain things because you you you are rich and hard yeah you you're rich that's right mine like you you're smart you you get it you speak five languages like uh you know and you're a kid i can't even do that you know what i'm saying so i tell anybody out there just just know that you know that you are rich already you know just how you present it what's next for you my man because it's like you're on the set of a movie right now man listen i'm out here trying to you know live my best life man live free i'm producing a new movie uh called flaming hot it's all about the creation of flaming hot cheetos uh there was a mexican janitor his name was richard montenez he worked for frito-lay he came up with the idea to put chili powder on a cheeto uh next thing you know that the snack becomes the the number one snack uh in the country he goes from being the janitor to becoming the vice president of multicultural marketing that he's referred to as the godfather of latino marketing and i'm here we start production uh in the next couple weeks and eva longoria is directing this movie uh and so i'm just excited man can't wait to bring that to the world man i got a series that i'm producing man we got we got you know i'm just you know i'm just trying to bring as much content as i possibly can because people are hurting people need help people need inspiration so i'm trying to use entertainment as a vehicle to bring as much inspiration as i can no we love it and you make sure you tell him uh whoever his people are that uh he's the man because hot cheetos over here is a real deal baby my viewers and the people that rob me some words of wisdom before i get out of here and just speaking to you today brother like i'm just going to tell them to live free you know take the expectations off the table um and just understand like you know enjoy the process enjoy it you know just just take time and that's probably one of my biggest regrets is not enjoying the process as much and everything i do now from even being here with my crew and i just enjoy the process you know i just enjoy the small things that lead up to the big things and like you said just not making expectations so when you get there and it doesn't work out the way that you want it to work out you feel like you failed because that's the biggest thing and i'll tell you the bigger w than that is to actually be successful and so caught up in what's going on that you're not happy even when it works i'm saying because you're really lost you got that right someone said my brother devaughn for stopping by hanging out with us on worth the conversation giving us these gems and jewels make sure y'all pick up his new book live free and exceed your highest expectations right here on worth of conversation or whatever books is sold y'all check out my guy devon franklin appreciate your brother go shoot down man i'm gonna send you my address so you can send me some cheetos it's all love i got you don't worry brother my brother you

Channel: FOX Soul

Views: 20,156

Keywords: Black Family, Black Excellence, Black Millennials, Black Comedy, Blackpreneur, Black Girl Magic, Black Men, Black Women, fox soul, FOXSOUL, Black Lives Matter, African American, Black History Month, MLK, Black Community, Black History, BLM, Worth a Conversation, Worth a Conversation with Jeezy, Devon Franklin, CHurch, God, Jesus, Ministry, Minister, Authenticity, Happiness, positivity, Covid-19

Id: ph6HGM51vk8

Length: 51min 5sec (3065 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 03 2021