Overcoming depression and building a business of impact - Abraham Sculley

[0:00]  all right guys welcome back to another episode of the heart and hustle podcast I am incredibly excited to have my man Abraham Scully with me today um I discovered Abraham via LinkedIn I believe right we kind of connected on that channel um was really interested in everything that you're doing from a mental health perspective but also kind of like your family history and the mission that you're on to spread awareness around mental health so I just want to say thank you so much for coming on the show man it's going to be an absolute blast chatting with you today absolutely bro I'm excited thanks for the opportunity and I'm looking forward to the conversation absolutely so let's get started um so let's break down your background a little bit so why don't you let everybody know where Abraham came from what type of household he grew up in and kind of some of your early life

[0:47]  experiences let's give everybody a little bit of a background for sure how far do you want to go take it back to the very beginning man let's talk about like Abraham and diapers where were you at oh man I love it so uh young Abe I actually uh I'll I'll start there young Abe uh family closest friends call me Abe um I grew up in a very fun active household um I grew up in Miami Miami Florida all the Floridians listening to this uh and it was it was a really amazing experience just having three other siblings um being the the middle child kinda sorta and being the one who would always be interested in you know how can

[1:37]  I annoy my brothers and sisters so it was I was that kid um and you know we did anything from you know arguing about playing Super Nintendo uh NBA NBA fever all these different you know games to climbing mango trees in the backyard uh playing WWE wrestling um on each other uh it was a fun experience and what was very interesting about it is both my parents are from Jamaica so they moved to the United States because they thought there were many opportunities that they couldn't have access to um in Jamaica they also wanted to start a family my dad is an entrepreneur you know in and

[2:27]  out like I've seen my dad start businesses hire employees and not even be like documented right not even have you know papers at that time but yet he's running these businesses and hiring you know citizens so it was really cool to watch that and just see their hustle as a couple um and so I grew up in that type of environment I also grew up in a Christian family so my dad's a pastor right and so I had an opportunity to be exposed to Faith religion uh relationship with God at a very early age um by the time I was like 11 years old I I could recite all 66 books of the Bible like without even looking like it was that it was that deep yeah we were the type of family that we were the ones who

[3:15]  opened the church doors for everyone else to come in so it was very very um interesting fun one unique household one thing that I always talk about in my household is that although we had so many conversations about so many different things unfortunately we didn't talk about mental health so um when I was 14 years old my parents after being married for over 20 years they decided to divorce and that was something that I never imagined would happen and had no idea what the the effects of that would be and I didn't even recognize the effects until much later but long story short they divorced in our family our beautiful family broke apart so we went from

[4:03]  everyone being in one household to my dad being here my mom being here my siblings being here me being here and bouncing between different households and trying to figure it out like as a young person what does it mean to no longer have your family as one unit so that led to me being um very rebellious uh I went from being a straight A student although I gave a lot of trouble in the household I did show up when it came to my academics straight A student by the time I was in Middle School I already had a four-year scholarship to any college I wanted to go to in Florida like that type of student how does this happen so you're just killing it throughout school you're

[4:51]  getting such good grades that literally they're like you can come wherever you want in our home state of Florida I've never heard of that before you must have been really top tier man top tier I'm talking about academically and just um Behavior so like you know how I showed up in the classroom the type of individual I was was very much hey let's look up to Abraham like the younger students and even my peers like saw me as a mentor but there was this specific program called take stock in children and so is this mentorship program a scholarship program that for students who qualified they were able to work with the program up until they graduated from high school and if they can stay consistent with the program they now have you know the funds a scholarship to

[5:39]  attend any college in Florida I don't know if the program still exists it may still exist but I was a part of that um and so it was I went from being that type of student to like the complete opposite when my parents broke up it was like all hell broke loose I didn't know how to articulate the pain that I was feeling emotionally we didn't have conversations as a family as to like what happens next it was almost like okay uh yes we're going through this and although we're kind of acting like we're not going through this and it's not bothering us we're also not going to talk about it you kind of just have to figure it out so at 14 years old I'm trying to figure out what the heck is going on and how do I move on and how do I get all of these emotions inside of me out and the best way I knew to do that at 14 was just acting out so I'm talking

[6:28]  about anything from hanging with the wrong crowd smoking drinking you know acting out of character but as I got older I realized everything that I was doing I you know was simply the effect and a display of me articulating what was going on internally I just didn't have the language for it so uh fast forward to High School um went to high school those same behaviors carried over all the way up until 11th grade until I had a mentor of mine Joe my guy Joe uh he encouraged me to go to college and I had no intentions of going to college but he encouraged me to fill out some applications and just

[7:15]  see what happens I ended up getting accepted to a couple and um that shifted my mindset in terms of hey I don't want to just graduate from high school and continue working at Wendy's and there's nothing wrong with working at Wendy's but um I want to actually see what's out there so I ended up going to college I moved 700 miles away from home and I'm now this first you know generation college student no one in my family had done it I was the first to to try it out and I was excited and that first year as exciting as it was there were also some challenges that I did not anticipate and one of those challenges were it was struggling with my mental health

[8:02]  and I had no language again for mental health or things like depression but I had a good friend of mine who saw the shift happen she saw me shift from being this very enthusiastic go-getter to not seeing me on campus not really engaging not answering her phone calls her text messages and she was brave enough to reach out she reached out to me one weekend and asked me hey this is what I'm noticing is everything okay I lied and said everything is okay and I tried dancing around the issue until I couldn't and she was that type of friend that was very persistent and um in that conversation she introduced me to the counseling center on campus which is where I was able to finally sit down

[8:50]  with a mental health professional for the first time in my life was diagnosed with major depressive disorder treated for major depressive disorder and that really you know kick-started me on this journey of what the heck is mental health what the heck is depression how did I get so low and how do I put myself in position to not look at depression as this thing that happens to those people but look at the importance of prioritizing my own mental health and well-being but also being a position to share my story so that other people who look like me right who come from similar backgrounds or experiences they know that you know they can also do the work required to prioritize them and be in a healthy State of Mind I think that's an amazing story you know you've been through so much and so much

[9:37]  lived experience that so many people can relate to who are listening to this episode you know one of the things that I think about in society today is the rate in which kind of superheroes of our parents and their relationships we put up on a pedestal right but so many people have gone through the experience of seeing their parents have rocky times they end up separating they end up getting divorced it's a more common story than not and I don't think we give ourselves enough credit to recognize the internal impacts on kind of our younger versions of self because when our parents split up it's like wait hold on this was something that no one ever told me was going to happen you know what I mean and like seeing the fact that we want attention that we want to be able to talk about these things and then your family took the same stance that pretty much everybody's family does is like let's just keep moving forward so when you

[10:25]  were in those early days and you're with your siblings did you guys ever kind of have the conversations internally about like what's going on with Mom and Dad or did you guys just keep it pushing as well no and one thing I like to share is that more is caught than taught so a lot of what my parents said we don't really listen to those things but we do what we see them do and because it was they're moving forward they're acting as if nothing is happening it was almost like we just tagged along and you know gave those same um took those same steps but one thing I want to mention to what you just said because I think it's critical is like not only do we recognize that there's a lot happening when our parents break up or for those who experience that but it's also as a young person it's hard to

[11:15]  um understand that this has nothing to do with you this is literally two human beings going through issues and they're unable to work through their issues and so they are separating has nothing to do with who you are as a child it has nothing to do with the behaviors that you've displayed it has nothing to do with what you did or did not do and I think many children especially at young age ages they blame themselves like the reason my parents divorce is because I wasn't you know good enough or I did something but it has nothing like literally it had nothing to do with me and it wasn't until I got older where I started to really separate myself from the situation and look at it from an objective standpoint especially now being a married person I'm three years in the game like I can clearly see how somebody can make a decision to divorce

[12:05]  because marriage is hard and if you don't have the skills the tools the community the support like it's easy to say you know forget this I'm done so now I look at it from a whole new perspective of they were just two human beings first of all they came from Jamaica they're now in this whole new place they're trying to figure it out they have this family they have bills to pay like they have things going on and they come up on some marital issues that they need to work through so understanding it from that lens I think for a lot of people who experience or come from homes like this it helps the individual who does have that hurt to know that this has nothing to do with me and I can actually support in this process by um showing compassion you know having

[12:57]  Grace for the situation because one of the things that I did for a very long time is I harbored a lot of like resentment and hurt and pain because I thought this was being done to me so I just wanted to share that point too I think that's incredibly important to bring up because you're 100 right you know when we come from a younger mindset we always think that we have a bigger impact on the people around us than often we do especially with our parents and so I remember I think I was like 20 23 years old maybe 22 the first time I kind of had one of those aha moments where I was like wait these people aren't superheroes they're human just like I am and they're trying to figure stuff out and it kind of like gives you that if everybody who grew up in like the early 2000s gives you like that That's So Raven moment where it's like you kind of like recognize everything that's going on I love that show when

[13:45]  did you uh when did you have that moment was it before or once you went away to college like do you remember that time you had that epiphany of like damn Mike my parents are just real people I had many of those bro the most recent one was probably last month but I think the more I grow and mature the more I have those moments and I don't see it as a bad thing I see it as well dang bro you're doing the work to grow as a human being and so now your brain is expanding which allows you to see things differently I would say one of the moments that helped me to um to see it in that way is I was watching a movie and I'll never forget this day like I was I want to see where me and my wife dating I think me and my

[14:33]  wife were dating at the time we weren't married yet and we went to go see this movie and in the movie there was a scene where it was like a father-son scene and I don't know what the heck happened in terms of who hit the the the tear jerker switch but the the the um actor says something or there was something this director did did and out of nowhere I started balling in the movie theater like uncontrollably and my uh girlfriend at the time um maybe fiance uh she's like she's like you know putting my head on her okay it's okay but she has no idea why I'm crying and I didn't even know what it

[15:22]  was that triggered me to you know have all of those emotions but essentially what happened is I realized from watching that scene that there were certain things that I wish I had received from my dad that didn't happen as a result of the uh divorce and the kind of that separation and then through that realization it helped me to see wow right you know this couldn't happen because my dad was going through things in this moment so it's that realization of um I'm not like the center of the world although I felt that way like you know as a kid it's like I'm the center of attention all things revolve around me it's like no there's so many moving pieces like that play a role in that factor into

[16:10]  what's going on in in my life as a whole I mean it's just uh some of those early moments are so powerful and one of the things that I like to talk about you know especially being men who come from African-American Jamaican descent we have to recognize that we have a responsibility to be the best versions of our male lineage and I say that to say our grandparents our great grandparents grew up in completely different worlds than we did and that meant they didn't often have the skill sets nor the time or the space to be able to recognize how they should have emotional conversations how people need to be supported with empathy how you need to be able to support your children like my great-grandfather was a sharecropper from Arkansas my

[16:57]  grandfather was born in 1930 in in America at that point in time and it's pretty easy to say how discriminatory it was at that point in time my father had the ability to kind of put his family first by being an entrepreneur and making bigger gambles and taking a chance on himself now when it comes to having conversations like we're having today Abe I just think about the skills and the opportunities that you and I have that the people in our family our fathers specifically didn't even have the awareness to be able to recognize as being as important as they are and now that we are here having conversations like this I think we're doing a great job of taking that baton and moving it forward to be able to recognize kind of how important this stuff is and part of my conversation today really is going to be about just the element of being a man in today's world especially an

[17:46]  African-American man who really has an emphasis on Mental Health those things are so important but those conversations are incredibly scary and we're really the first generation who is having them publicly in a fashion like this and so you know I just want to commend you for everything that you've done thus far and I just kind of think about the next five ten years of your life and how many conversations you're really going to start for other people so because you are absolutely right and I think that perspective has helped me in my journey in growth and development to see that as the generations have progressed progressed we have just been getting better in different ways it's not that we're stagnant it's not that we're going backwards but because of what my great grandpa did my grandpa was able to do this because of what my

[18:35]  grandpa did my dad was was able to do this and it just goes on and on and that perspective is like dang I'm only here because of them not like wearing two different things it's like we work together this is this is a a collaborative effort and I love the analogy about passing the Baton but I also want to shout out all the men especially African-American men who are from that generation before us who are also doing that emotional work because I'm a part of communities and um I try to always keep myself like surrounded by people who are at different levels higher levels than me and like growing um because I value growth and there are you know 50 year old 60 year olds 70 euros that I get to meet and be in relationship with who are seeing what

[19:25]  this our generation is doing and they are fighting whatever internal barriers they need to fight in order to level up for themselves and have these emotional conversations and so I do want to you know hold space to shout them out and congratulate them because I can only imagine like the amount of effort and energy it takes to come from that earlier generation but then also be open to what's happening now the shifts that are happening now because who our great grandparents were and Grandparents were they had to be that because of the situation that they were in like we're talking about vulnerability now but just imagine you know you have a slave owner and you're practicing vulnerability

[20:12]  right you are you will be manipulated you're not the highest level like you'll be taken advantage of so to not be vulnerable during that time was necessary in many cases so because we have evolved as a culture we've evolved as a people and we are now adapting to this new um this new opportunity really like it takes work for them to come from that mindset and also be open to the work that it takes to get to that next level so um and thank you for the the Kudos in the work that I've been able to to do and my goal really is to continue these conversations but essentially like how can we eradicate the stigma and shame around mental health like that's my

[21:00]  personal I believe it's like even a calling for me bro like I feel like you know I am very like entrepreneurial and interested in many different things and some things are related to mental health some are not but I feel like this conversation about mental health and what I've been through will always be a part of me um because this was a transformational period of my life that I had no idea would lead to the work that I'm doing these days but I don't see myself not doing this at any point because I see younger people you know coming up to me after hearing my story and having a conversation with me and seeing me you know so open to talking about these things and so vulnerable and then they start to do the same and then they're

[21:47]  asking themselves man you know how did you how did you make me do that I don't normally tell people and and it goes the same way with the older guys like I'll have conversations and do you know presentations you know whether it's at a church um but I see the older generation hearing someone like me come up and you know be vulnerable and then they start doing the same thing so it's like there is no way I can stop doing this because this only pushes our culture forward like we talk about African-American men imagine if we bring the the physical strength the mental fortitude and all of those things that we already possess in addition to seeing power and vulnerability like we are literally Unstoppable bro yeah that makes me that's a that's a scary combination you know what I'm saying

[22:33]  something physically strong who is intelligent who is entrepreneurial who's a go-getter a grinder who's willing to do the work but also willing to be vulnerable and have real conversations I mean imagine just like the generations of men who will come from people like us you know as you were talking there I started to think about when I was younger I saw examples of people doing things in my society that caused me to go into my passions I grew up in Seattle I watched Ken Griffey Jr hit home runs on TV right playing for the Mariners and I was like dude I want to do that and now that we've got people like you and me out there who are talking about these vulner conversations the importance of mental health but more importantly kind of starting conversations around why this stuff is so important it doesn't always have to be on the biggest stage but sometimes the example that we're

[23:21]  setting for others is the thing that has the ability to swayed how somebody goes into things that they're passionate about you know like when we were coming up the only examples that I saw of African-American men were playing sports I'm an entrepreneur today because my father was an entrepreneur I didn't even know that that was a thing until later when entrepreneurial lifestyle became more popular that I recognized like oh this is something that other people do as well it's like in order for us to follow in the footsteps of the great men who have done things behind us and in the future we have to be able to kind of lay those footsteps down first and show people that's a safe space you know one of the things I often think about as well is there's a lot of Silent observers out there especially when we're talking about an important subject like mental health I would imagine that sometimes when you go talk in front of a crowd there are men in that space who

[24:09]  are like I agree with that it takes them to a place where they're like okay I totally relate with that I understand where you're coming from I have those feelings too but because of that stigma that we still hold internally often we don't kind of you know stand up and show that we are in alignment with that and that's something I think people need to recognize today there's a lot of people listening and a lot of people watching maybe because you're not getting the lights likes engagement or people standing up and giving you a round of applause doesn't mean that you're not having an impact and I think that's a huge part of the work that you do especially on like a public forum in a public space being able to create an example for people is so powerful man and I just kind of you know want to give you a little bit more Kudos ape for the great work that you're doing I appreciate it bro and and you know to that point about like being an example

[24:56]  I'm very grateful for the opportunity that I have um with being an example because I also went to school for psychology and um got my bachelor's in psychology and typically when someone is studying psychology the route is to be a counselor like you do individual counseling one-on-one counseling and that's typically the route that you take um obviously there are other directions if you want to get into sports psychology occupational psychology all of those different things organizational um but our first thought is if you're studying psychology after you get done with your bachelor's you're going to get your Master's in counseling and then you're going to become a therapist when I started studying psychology I already knew I would never be a

[25:47]  therapist that was not my goal and I had the self-awareness enough to know I don't want to do the one-on-one I want to be able to have the same level of impact on a bigger scale and when I got introduced to this public speaking World which I didn't even know was a thing I didn't know people got paid to speak in front of people like my my thought was I want to study psychology so that I am knowledgeable so that when anyone comes to me in a one-on-one conversation like I can give them some tips some strategies on how to either further the conversation or maybe even help himself but the speaking thing that didn't come until much later but when I was exposed to that it kind of merged with this this entrepreneurial part of me and I started

[26:37]  to really like look at it as this can be a career path and since doing that I've been able to speak you know campuses all throughout the country and I meet a lot of psychology students and they're like how can I do what you're doing and I'm saying you're in the right spot if you're studying psychology let's say you have a story you consider yourself an advocate you want to create change you want to create impact like you can do this too you don't necessarily have to be a therapist and not pushing anyone from being a therapist because we absolutely need our clinicians and all of our mental health professionals and those who are going in that direction they know that's what they want to do but then there are some other people who are studying psychology but they're trying to figure it out like I want to do this

[27:25]  but I'm not sure and then they see or hear someone like me you know presenting and realize oh this person does this as a profession like how the heck can I do that right and so it's now opening up opportunities for um younger people to say maybe I can become a a mental health speaker maybe I can become a consultant maybe I can do all of these different things that I didn't know was possible I thought I had to be a counselor so just a a quick you know just something I wanted to share on that too yeah I mean this is a huge part that I think about in the entrepreneurial Journey right I put a post the other day on LinkedIn and it was like entrepreneurs Drive Society forward because we're willing to take a different perspective at challenges that we face now when I kind of started my

[28:13]  entrepreneurial Journey back in 2014 we started a Telehealth company specifically to increase access to Mental Health Services here in the state of Nevada and me being younger I didn't come from a psychology background right I didn't come from you know a clinical background and that's something that made me different but I also gave me different perspectives on the space and when we talk about approaching a problem you know one of the biggest things that we find or have I found in healthcare is the model in itself is always going to be trading time for service right but it obviously creates bottlenecks if I have to sit down with Abe for 45 minutes and I deliver a 45 minute service to you there's only so many 45-minute slots in the day in the week in the year and we just at this point in time have a bigger swath of people who need the services that we're trying to provide so how do we attack that differently and one of

[29:00]  the biggest things that you can do and this is kind of something I admire about you is you've taken a lot of scary situations nose to nose right going into mental and Behavioral Health and being a public speaker public speaking in itself is one of the scariest things that you know people identify in society today and so do you think that your ability to take on tough challenges is kind of what has primed you to be so confident about speaking about mental health because in itself it's a scary conversation scary topic but you're just used to doing scary stuff a hundred percent man and I credit my parents to it I mean you think about two Jamaicans uh who are immigrants and literally are building a family and they're in this place that they've never been before and they have to figure it out right I saw a lot of I'm gonna do

[29:48]  what it takes to get to where I need to go I'm gonna do those scary stuff so I mentioned earlier Morris caught then taught I don't think my parents ever told me hey you should get up and go do scary things but I saw them you know be resilient and that just kind of rubbed off on me and you know what's very interesting is with this whole speaking thing I was very much afraid of speaking because my dad was a pastor like he would always throw me up and I would have to do the scripture reading or the offering and I would hate it bro like I would be so nervous and um that followed me for years like I remember being um in undergrad and I went to a pwi predominantly white institution and I at the time there weren't many black people

[30:35]  in my classes and so I almost felt like inferior and then I'm also like a first generation student so I felt like I don't feel like I'm supposed to be here I don't feel and so for a very long time I never raised my hand and I never asked questions because even though I had questions and I wasn't doing as well as I would have liked to I was nervous to speak publicly so what I did for myself is I said all right a you're gonna have to get over this if you want to be successful I went from sitting in the back of the class to sitting in the middle and then I did that for some time for a few weeks and I got comfortable sitting in the middle and then I went from sitting in the middle of the class to sitting in the front of the class I got comfortable sitting in the front of the

[31:22]  class and then I said all right what's the next step how about I start raising my hand and just saying things out loud maybe it might not be a question it might just be a comment about something the professor said so I would do that and I got comfortable raising my hand and speaking in front of people and then I went to the next stage which was okay I actually have a question and even though I may feel quote unquote stupid about asking this question I'm gonna still ask it and I got comfortable doing that until the point where I was one of those students who the professor knew was always going to have something to say so I say all of that to share you know as I'm jumping into these scary things yes these are scary things but I'm very strategic like I'm a very intentional individual and I know that I have strengths I know I have weaknesses um and in order for me to get to what I

[32:11]  want like there has to be some some at least some level of strategy I'm not gonna overthink and try to perfect it before I take a step but I'm gonna have at least like I forgot who said it there's a book where it says start with the end goal in mind or something like that right and so I'm gonna at least see what the vision looks like and as I am stepping on these steps it's gonna get clearer as I get closer and I've just always been that I mean I've been told in undergrad I initiated a lot of things on my campus there were a lot of things that didn't exist until Abe said this is a problem we gonna make it happen and I started this program called mental health Mondays and um I would have a a session in the the university Commons area open to any students staff faculty who wanted to attend and I would just

[33:01]  teach like anything I was learning in Psychology anything that I was learning through my own research I would just teach for 45 minutes or so invite the fraternity student orgs you know my professors all that hey this is what anxiety is this is what the signs are this is the help that you have on campus and I did that consistently for some time and I had like counselors come to those sessions and then afterwards say to me you know hey you shouldn't be doing this stuff like you're you don't have any credentials like yeah you're studying psychology and this is a you have a good heart in what you're doing but um you shouldn't you shouldn't do that you need to stop and like I heard it was like you ain't doing it so who's gonna do it I'm not counseling people I'm just providing the education so that they can

[33:50]  end up in your office and get the counseling they need so um yeah there were a lot of people who came to me and and you know said that I wouldn't do what it is I'm doing today um I shouldn't be talking about things like mental health um I say this all the time like I got my bachelor's in psychology um and there are so many people who say well you don't have a master so I don't think you can XYZ you don't have a PhD you haven't done all these reviewed articles and things like that and I hear it I mean they may have validity behind it but I'm not going back to school and I'm clear on that so whatever it takes in order for me to um what adjustments I need to make in order for me to get to where I'm trying to go like I'm willing to do those

[34:37]  necessary things and it's scary and it's a first many times you know so there isn't really a blueprint at least what I found in some situations but um there's this guy who I love I love he always has a statement um there's always a way and every time like I come up on a challenge and I'm like okay this seems impossible but then I remember there's always a way I just haven't figured it out yet so uh yeah I think the doing the hard things comes from my parents and comes from the environment I was in but then how I continue to nurture that is to realize I don't have all the answers it's okay to ask for help and because of my nature I'm gonna always jump out you know and figure things out well I mean it's it's incredibly powerful to hear and it kind of you know

[35:24]  I've I've got a bone to pick um with you know the institutions right some people are always going to be like hey you shouldn't be talking about this subject because you're not credentialed you don't have certification you don't have the piece of paper hanging on your wall and my response to that is if you're not doing it then who's going to do the work you know what I'm saying and it's like we don't build confidence through saying things but we build confidence through doing things and having a track record of what we've accomplished in the past that gives us the confidence to stand in front of you today and my question for you is the mindset of having somebody from the institution who is credentialed who is certified coming up to Abe and being like you shouldn't have these conversations how did you kind of stay steadfast in those early days be was it

[36:12]  the mission that you had in front of you was it the passion that you had to kind of spread awareness around what you were kind of you know so into what was that drive and how did you kind of you know fortify by that mindset because I know there's a lot of people out there who are really crippled by the conversations the no's the you shouldn't be doing this from the people at the top you know what I'm saying so like how did you see that mindset that's such a great question because now we're talking about like the internal work necessary to do anything not even my specific situation but what do you have to say to yourself what do you have to know what do you have to believe in order to take that step so I love this question and in in all honesty bro like when I heard that it did shake me a little bit because I'm like well I'm not credentialed um and then I think she tried to use

[37:00]  like a scare tactic or whatever but like she she basically said like hey you know what if one of these students who attend your session like ends up dying by Suicide what if they take their lives right like um you can be liable for things like that and so there were certain things that now had me thinking oh shoot well what do I do in those situations and for me now it was about having a creative approach to what I'm doing because at the end of the day like I'm not gonna stop I just need to find out how to do it do I need to bring a professional in these sessions so that they can sit in while I do my teaching do I need to get certain credentials or do I need to not teach certain things but still teach these things um and but initially it did kind of

[37:49]  shake me a little bit because now I was exposed to information that I didn't have before and it's very you know likely that somebody can take their lives you know after attending a session um so from that it was really um just thinking through it right that going back to that saying there's always a way so another thing was I believed from the very beginning that this Mission I'm on is much bigger than me I never wanted to do this like I never wanted to open up about my mental health I was scared first of all I couldn't tell my parents because they didn't understand depression and they were just like you need to just you know get up and do what you got to do like that's just how we operate it and um there were people who I was close to that when I

[38:38]  did start to speak openly about depression they were like nah a you you different like we don't do that like it wasn't cool like it is now like think about 2015 like yes there were some people talking about it but it wasn't like we saw a lot more you know influential figures bringing it up but yeah so I lost friends like because I was doing this thing but I remember making a commitment to God like one of the days where I was in like this really dark period I said yo guy if you get me through this I would tell the world about how you got me through this so and he got me through it he continues to so I I really had this internal belief in drive that it was it's always been bigger than me it has nothing I

[39:27]  mean yes I play a small role in all of this but it's it's bigger like this is gonna live beyond what I could ever imagine I think the other piece is having community and support to help nurture you I say this quote a lot of times with people and I say sometimes you have to rely on the belief that others have in you until you build a belief in yourself and there were some people who saw me doing what I was doing and they believed strongly in what they saw they're like I you know I don't know how far Abe is going to go with this but he's about to he's about to blow up and so I believe in whatever he says whatever he does like I was having a conversation uh with one of my mentors and I was just sharing this idea that I had and I was like yo

[40:16]  this is about to change the world and he was like you know the crazy thing is I believe you I like I literally believe you because I know who you are and um and so I had you know people even in my ears at that time mentors Community who was saying hey you may not have the credentials but what makes you an expert is your story like you are an expert in your lived experience and a lot of these therapists clinicians who are out there they may not have that lived experience or they may not be open to tapping into their own personal experience and so they can only go so far with Theory they can only go so far in supporting someone with what they've learned in the classroom and so the fact that I come with not only the knowledge the education but

[41:04]  like I've been there like I'm talking about like to the darkest place where I'm considering do I even continue to live like you know how can I live if I'm going to continue feeling like this to now being on the other side of that so and then I'm also open to like you know sharing that so I think having community knowing your why why are you doing this knowing the impact the level of impact that's going to come from you just staying the course um these were all things that were helpful for me to to continue moving forward even when I the institution you know was like you know this you need to stop yeah I mean it's very interesting to me and I love the fact that you know you have a mentor who believes in you

[41:52]  because of your lived experience that in itself is such a powerful message you know the thing that I think about and I have this discussion with myself all the time and I'm sure you have this influence in your life as well you said the beginning of our call today that you know there's a lot of other things that you're interested in which I totally understand because as an entrepreneur especially in this world of technology and Ai and all this effort kind of stuff out there there are so many opportunities for us to chase money right but I come from a very selfish and almost egotistical position when I speak about mental health and why it's so important to me because I want to be known as that guy in my lineage you know what I'm saying I'm six foot six 235 pounds I'm a big dude and it's a different mentality when you can stand up in front of people and talk about gratitude talk about being vulnerable you can talk about positivity you can

[42:41]  talk about mental health you know what I'm saying and so like I come from a very selfish position and being like I want to be known as that guy in my community in my friends or in my friend Circle in the lineage when everybody looks back and you and I have this amazing gift because we have the ability to speak in front of others but we're also now documenting this so I think about the future lineage the Gabe the third or the Abe the third or the Keenan the fifth do you know what I'm saying who comes back and looks at the things that me and you were doing in 2023 and then the lives that we were impacting as well because the conversations around mental health in my opinion are so multiplicative that we just only have we only need to have a few conversations that start other people talking that other people talk about that other people talk about and then we've seen the transformation our society right in front of us so you know I come from a

[43:28]  more of a selfish position and just wanted to be that guy for the people around me but I also recognize the mission that you're on I think there's a little bit of confidence in that Swagger that kind of comes in you as well I love it and you know you're you mentioned that and it's interesting you see it as selfish I don't really even see it as selfish because at the end of the day in order for you to become that guy it takes other people I mean you can't be that guy if you're the only person on the planet right who are you going to be that guy to or for right so the simple fact that you know the mission is being that guy there is the understanding that you have that people must be involved in that so I love that you want to be that guy like I think about LeBron James right I'm

[44:17]  sure he wanted to be that guy like he is that guy right I'm I'm sure he didn't go into the game you know saying to himself at an early age I just want to be good enough right but look at the influence the impact the that he has now right because he had he had the mission of you know I want to be that guy so I love that you're on that mission because we need more people who um want to be that deference maker because the reality is I feel like even now to this day like there has been multiple shifts around the conversation of mental health and wellness well-being especially with you know among men African-American men but I still don't think that we've even scratched the surface yes we're talking about it more

[45:04]  but I still don't think it's cool yet so you being that guy you have a lot of work to do like we have a lot of work to do and we have to realize that yes this is happening right now but this is only a snippet of what will take place you know Generations after because I think about even what's so crazy is like a few years ago the conversation was covered 19. that's all you heard look at a few years later we're hearing it here and there you know it's coming up and come so that just goes to show how quickly the the shift can happen the perception can happen the conversation can happen and just like mental health

[45:51]  um you think about the cancer culture uh whether you you know partake in it or not I don't you know um but look how quickly someone who is at a level of influence can lose their influence in the snap of a finger right so I think that what we're seeing now is great but this ain't nothing like I'm talking about what does longevity look like what does it look like to I mean even look at you know racism right there's been so many years of progression but we still experienced you know many people still experience racism so what does longevity look like around the conversation of mental health and that's the way I believe that those who are in these positions like us should be

[46:38]  thinking about right we're in a cool spot now but we got so much more to do so much more work to do yeah man so do you think that I saw Simon sinek the other day talking about mental health and he was like the conversation around mental health today has become so all-encompassing that everything is mental health anxiety depression everything and it's like it almost becomes like a buzzword and so one of the things that he talked about and I love the language switch here was changing mental health into mental Fitness and recognizing that there are correlations between our physical fitness and our mental Fitness one of which is it is a consistent exercise and partaking in different ways to challenge ourselves that we get into Peak physical fitness and if we want to accomplish a high level of mental health

[47:27]  or mental Fitness we also have to do those hard work that hard work having those tough conversations doing the squats going consistently working on yourself consistently working on that inner work and I thought that that was a very interesting perspective in how we can change the language to create more opportunities of acceptance from men especially because I feel like in our narrative there are so many stigmas that we have around Mental Health because it comes with so much preconceived notion preconceived experience and I would say definitions that maybe we don't align with so what is your two cents on overcoming some of the challenges from the male perspective about mental health in general and making it not come across So Soft do we have to change the language do we have to position it in different ways what's your two cents so I have a I guess an interesting

[48:16]  perspective on this because I don't necessarily think it's about changing the language but I am a hundred percent for doing what the individual needs in order to get to where they need to go so if it works for you to call it mental Fitness instead of mental health let's rock with it but I don't necessarily think it's it's we have to say it's no longer mental health it's like call it what it is like because if we get into that you know Rabbit Hole it will continue to change next year it's not going to be mental Fitness it's going to be uh mental aerobics mental balance right and so I I prescribe to this this guy who

[49:03]  subscribed to this guy who says um in a world where it's something to the effect of in a world where things are always changing you need to hold on to the things that never change so what that means for me is there are some things that just never change what are those things as it relates to mental health mental health will always be mental health right and and um what we what I try to do in in my work is I try to shift the perspective that we have around Mental Health versus Shifting the language because we don't say to your point about squats we don't call squats um sit downers because when we think of squats it makes us think like I want to

[49:52]  do that we call them squats because it's a squat right but in all of that being said like I am going if if helping you to take care of your mental health requires that we shift the language then let's shift the language like let's do what we got to do and um for me you know specifically when you talk about like how do we go about Shifting the stigma and really reducing that stigma I think it's two things um that will help with that is educating ourselves and others and sharing our stories I was in the airport the other day and something hit me and I was like man that was good do I have my notebook I may not say it you know uh exactly how I wrote it down but essentially it was

[50:40]  be intelligent enough to ask the question and be curious enough to listen to responses um and that has everything to do with understanding that as human beings we have stories we have lived experiences and I will never understand your story until I ask you certain questions and actually listen to what you have to say so for me the way I'm going to work towards eradicating stigma off of this planet is number one I'm going to continue to educate myself and educate others and then I'm going to continue to share my story and the stories of others and I think in doing that over time we will just adapt or evolve into this culture

[51:28]  where it's a it's a normal part of life like the same way we talk about hey like you what you drinking oh I'm drinking water okay you know make sure you keep your water intake up we're also going to have conversations where it's like hey when's the last time you saw your therapist uh oh I just checked in with them last week because I was going through a few things and I am I can already see that happening in the African-American Community now it's just about the taking those steps to make that a reality um but you know there are so many other creative approaches and ways that we can go about doing it but just in really like researching and being curious those are the two ways that I'm really focusing on shifting in our perspective yeah it's amazing what can happen if you never quit you know what I'm saying

[52:16]  Young Thug has a quote that I thought was really amazing beyond his situation right now but he was like you know if you want to stop restarting then you got to stop quitting and I was like okay that's very interesting and it's very true I mean I was having a conversation yesterday with a a spiritual and emotional counselor at a high school here in Las Vegas and we were talking about the work that we do at Francis and she was like you know one of the biggest shifts that I see even from our generation and she was in her mid-20s she was like my students are willing to have the conversation more today and I was like that is amazing to hear she was like I never thought I would have seen it but we have students who will come up to us and start asking questions they want to have these tough conversations because they want to know what's going on and my perspective is we have to keep doing the work that you and I are doing

[53:03]  Abe because every single opportunity every piece of content every conversation we have that we put out into the world is an opportunity to start an internal or an external conversation about these things that are so important and it's just so amazing to kind of see how these younger Generations are pushing forward like we've talked about the responsibility of everything that our parents have dealt with and didn't have the skill set the tools the mechanisms to be able to have the conversations and now we have a generation of people who are coming up and are willing to be more vulnerable which I think is so powerful it is one of the things I want to ask you about is kind of your perspective of vulnerability as we wrap up here today so on social media today we almost have an idealistic kind of culture that

[53:52]  overplays vulnerability for likes shares comments engagement that kind of stuff have you recognized this in society where people are almost willing to over share just as an ability to get the reaction from the people who are in their following Circle yeah I've seen bits and pieces of that but I also understand that when someone does not have a safe space they tend to use social media as a safe space unfortunately that's the case and so the fact that they are even expressing versus suppressing all of that I think is a good thing in some cases but then there are also obviously those people who are doing it for the likes for the you know attention and all that stuff but um yeah I've seen it you know and um I try to give it the benefit of the

[54:43]  doubt right and and really like especially if it's somebody that is close to me or somebody that I know like reading between the lines like I see what you're saying is there something that you are trying to communicate which is why you did what you did or shared what you just shared or is it that you're just sharing because you're it's it's it's something that's going on culturally or you're trying to get likes and and all that stuff but um you talk about vulnerability and how often we're hearing it and and how it can look like so many different things for many different people and I think that's very interesting because that's also true but um when I think about vulnerability I think about nakedness um

[55:29]  what does it feel like when you are butt naked in front of someone like and and sorry to get graphic for our listeners but there is that feeling of oh my gosh I'm seeing right now like everything is exposed right now so when I think of vulnerability when I find myself in that place I know that I am I am being vulnerable and I'm also doing the hard thing that's gonna allow me to grow as a human being and that doesn't happen often like there are some people who are posting things on social media and all this stuff and for the ones who are doing it for the likes they don't feel the feeling of oh I'm naked or I'm

[56:17]  people are seeing me they are looking for something but there are some people who are posting and stuff and then they're like hesitant should I hit the send button or should I should I actually post this because these these are my inner thoughts these are my inner emotions um and I think that's I don't know I haven't thought too much about this question but it's a good question I think that is how you know you're being vulnerable that is how you know that you are growing and that shouldn't happen with any and everybody I think there are um people that you need to identify in your life that you can be vulnerable with and I'm not vulnerable like naked in front of just everybody and as much as I'm open to sharing my story and talking about mental health there are certain things that I just won't tell

[57:04]  you because that ain't your business but you talk to my wife you talk to my closest friends and and they will you know they will know some things that you will not know and that's because we have built that relationship over time to where we have that safe space to be vulnerable and I share this you know in presentations or just in conversation uh a principle that I live by and I call it the hot principle and this this kind of speaks to the whole vulnerability thing and and how you can go about practicing vulnerability so um the hot acronym came from the the purification process that gold goes through um in order to become that you know valuable commodity and that beautiful bar of gold or whatever so it goes through extreme heat and extreme

[57:53]  pressure and it's hot it's uncomfortable so I believe that as human beings we also go through extreme pressure and extreme heat and it's hot so um in the hot principle it stands for H being honest o being open and T being transparent so when we're honest it's when we are tapping into self-awareness what's going on with me internally we're not sharing any information yet we're just checking in with self being open is when we're open to new information we're gonna you know try something different Albert Einstein says insanity is doing the same thing over and over again yet expecting different results right you have to at least be open and then the transparency piece is now that I've done the self-awareness work I'm now open to suggestion open to information open to trying something different I am going to

[58:42]  be transparent within my inner circle right and in that transparency that's when I'm able to really get what it is that I need and I think it takes work right like when I have conversations with my friends and I'm like yeah I gotta be hot right now right and they know okay aim needs to be honest open and transparent like me just asking for that space is difficult because I don't come from a background where we just you know share our stuff it's like what happens in this house stays in this house like we don't talk about that stuff so it takes effort energy and if you know you know I'm able to do that consistently I think it allows me to grow as a human well I think that is a perfect place for us to end today Abe you know I can see the trajectory that you're on the impact

[59:33]  that you're having in your community the lives that you're impacting but more importantly the motivation behind why you're doing what you're doing and I'm pretty sure that the audience was able to pick up on that as well because of how passionate you are and the conviction that you have when you speak about these important topics and I just want to say thank you so much for everything that you're doing man and it's been a pleasure having you on the show today thanks man absolutely my guy I loved it this is great all right cool