Understanding who you are with Rodney Perry

 Josh
 Good day fellows. Welcome to uncensored advice for men. I love the show because I get to talk with people from all different backgrounds, all different locations in the world, different belief systems. We come together to give advice, right? To share advice, to share our story and to say, this may be helpful to you. You may not fully understand it. You might not fully believe it, but all of our guests have come together raising their hand to say, I have something to give to other dudes. With that, man, we've interviewed pastors, porn stars, everything in between to bring uncensored in a world where things are being censored. So this is risky. With that, we do this for you guys, cause we love you. With that, man, Rodney Perry, AKA king from up north is going to have a conversation with us today about us dudes and what he thinks we need to hear. 

 Josh
 So Rodney man, welcome to the show. 

 Rodney
 Thanks for having me. 

 Josh
 Do you want me to call you Rodney or do you want me to go with king? What, what would you prefer, man? 

 Rodney
 Either, either as good Rodney's Koetsu. 

 Josh
 Okay. I want to call you king man. Could I call you king. 

 Rodney
 For sure. 

 Josh
 All right. All right. Thank you. All right. King, tell us about who you are, man. 

 Rodney
 Well, I've been a digital creator specifically in the medium of podcasting for the past six years in counting actually initiated my podcast here in Chicago, Illinois. When I moved, I relocated from the south to Chicago. My podcast is social criticism podcast. I talk about everything under the sun from, I can have a whole podcast where I'm speaking to microaggressions and in the workplace or just around in the world or having a fun levity conversation about just, music and pop culture. I think I've always approached it from talking about the things that aren't being spoken to kind of unpacking those real meaning, those meaningful things that kind of impact us about music and culture and things like that. So, yeah, I've talked to over 70 plus different guests, but I also do my own solo episodes as well from all over from London to Australia, to Brazil and all over the United States. 

 Rodney
 A lot of my conversations definitely are kind of my, my general premise in my show is this softly conscious podcast and humans simply being humans. I think a big misnomer in that is I said, I want everybody to understand that just being is something that we really don't get the time to do in America sometimes. You're just in the world at all, just to be who we are and stand in who we are on a consistent basis. A lot of my topics are always about, at the core about our own individual humanity and how diverse that can really be and just how people will show up and how people like to show up. It's, it's a pretty interesting pod. I think a lot of people have enjoy the spaces that I feel like I've created on the podcast to have particular conversations. So I've done that. 

 Rodney
 And I also started my own company. Life is king, which is a creative production company and also a digital marketing company last year where I basically assist others who would like to, get into podcasting and may not even know technically how to do it or people who have companies and Jean Lee don't have the time to create some type of marketing strategy or the marketing assets to better market their business and get to whatever their sales objectives are. That's kind of who I am now. Yeah. This is what's going on with me. Yeah. From, from Jackson, Tennessee, Southern boy Southern bread and yeah. Yeah. 

 Josh
 How old are you bro? 

 Rodney
 I'm. 

 Josh
 29, 29 years old. Okay, cool. You do have a great radio podcast voice man. Awesome. Man. Why in the world? Did you start your podcast? You said you started doing this about six years ago. Why? Yeah, 

 Rodney
 For me it was a Saint to be Tonsley. So I wouldn't go crazy. When I first moved to Chicago, I was still looking for work after college and I was in a relationship and everything. It was a lot of pressure on me to find something. It was a lot of pressure on me, just I was putting on myself and I think a big part, in, in the right before we pressed record, you asked about how long, I've been having lots for the past 14 years, almost past 14 years. I think that was a big part of my frustration too, that I was literally going into interviews and there was questions about my hair, cause I was going, I was, I studied marketing in college. I was going in and doing, interviewing these marketing agencies at these small and be small kind of local marketing agencies as well. 

 Rodney
 And everybody left and right. Every other, probably every third interview I would go on would have a, want to have a conversation about my image and my hair in some way, shape or form, like how attached to your hair are, you were the type of questions that I was getting. I was like, it's all in my head, and yeah, right. It's real attached, and I think because of, being able to get into the room and being able to kind of, answer every other question and get a great response to me, I thought what you would think will be enough for consideration, but I think it was the hangup that they all kind of had. I think, yeah, it was hard for me not to see that as a point of rejection for why some of those things weren't happening and why I wasn't getting those callbacks. 

 Rodney
 I, I really, it was a friend of mine by the name of Elijah, who I was going to have a radio show in college. Honestly the powers that be were dragging their feet with approve of my show. They literally approved my show to about the same month, no, in April and I was graduating in may. I submitted my show in October of the previous year and my senior year. I'm thinking I'm going to have the show from the rest of, the rest of the first semester and all of second semester. It was going to be a hit. I called that show simply king, which is the name of my podcast and the simply king radio show. Elijah was going to be my music director. He kinda came into me, came to me around like, mid August of 2015 and was just like, Hey, I know you had an a, we couldn't, do the idea with the radio show, but what about a podcast? 

 Rodney
 I was like, what is a podcast? I didn't even know what a podcast was in 2015. I just told myself, what, if I could figure this out, then I'm gonna try, I'm gonna do it. And immediately loved it. I feel like it's definitely a medium that's made for me. I feel like that is a thing that I feel like I've always gotten it. I did have a great voice over the mic and just in general and just my overall orient, or writing skills. I'm like, all right, let me look into this. Let me see how easy this really is. And, got on a laptop and was real close to it and tried to, get my, you try to get some type of content off. Then, trial and error kind of figured it out. I think now I have pretty much a breed real well to a machine at this point where I can present it to people and be like, Hey, go check this out. 

 Rodney
 People will be like, damn, you really know how to do this. Like it's been 10 years in it. I'm glad it's finally, people are starting to see it as a something that's legitimate. And I stay consistent with it. Cause a lot of people don't. 

 Josh
 Yeah, nah, man, you're doing it. When, when I first started my first podcast, people were making fun of me. It was like, it was the goofy thing to do, right? Like to sit in your room and be on a, a microphone or whatever. There were shows made, making fun of it too. Later on, people started realizing that this is a powerful tool to use what made you stick with it. Right. Because doing it for six, seven years, right. You, you stuck through I'm sure. All sorts of adventures. 

 Rodney
 Hell yeah, for me it was genuinely the, it was a vehicle for expression. For me, it was the fact that I could continuously create new conversations. I think it was a, a true like icebreaker for me. Like now I have an ice breaker for life. If I meet interesting people or meet people who I believe would be great guests on my show, now I can engage with them in a even more passionate way. And they always flattered. I think, prior to this real big boom in podcasting where everybody kind of can create a podcast even easier now probably pre maybe 2020. I feel like a lot of people were extremely flattered to be asked to be on a podcast, while now it's a lot easier. It's almost like, I've been on three podcasts. Yeah. I'll come into yours. It's not even a, it's not even a such a big honor anymore. 

 Rodney
 Cause it's like, yeah, I've been on pocket. I got my own actually, so, but it's been cool to be able to have these conversations. I think honestly, the people who come and find my podcast whenever they do keep me going, they tell me about things. I've said, guests that I've brought on that have helped them or people that they've now been introduced to, or may have way of thinking. One of the best examples that I can give is Dr. Kamia Dennis, who I found through, I believe it was pod match, like a little podcast guest in podcast directory. She's a socially sociologist of she's a sociologist of African diaspora, child-free sociology. Right. Basically she studies and she writes about the overall phenomenon of being child-free being black. Child-free basically because it's such a, because in so many other cultures and Sargent spaces, usually very developed worlds where they have more freedom to choose if they'll have children or not, but in spaces that are usually very black, that's really a stigma to not have children to not quote unquote, just have any type of procreation. 

 Rodney
 I literally had a conversation with her and so many people reached out to me and was like, Hey, I didn't I've, I appreciate you having this conversation because now I have the language to tell my family, my parents, I'm never having kids and why I'm never having kids. That it's a choice and that it's a lifestyle and that it's okay for all these different reasons. Cause I think everybody should have f*****g children. Everybody should not have children. If you do, you should know all the reasons as to why you want to have children. And, and she was just basically saying she and she is that she's a person who never has children. She spoke to, the benefits of, leaning into the idea of you have siblings and they have children. You now have small children in your life. Like if you, that is the desire that you want. 

 Rodney
 There it is. Maybe you can be a mentor. Maybe you can be a foster parent. Maybe you could be something else for a temporary piece of time, if that's just what it is. Cause that's all it is. You can satisfy that. That's really all you seek. If you genuinely assigning up to be a parent, understand everything that you're signing up for. Because I think a lot of people don't, I think they just think of something cute to do and something out of love. When it's like, it's actually made me not like you anymore. You know? It's really about getting people thinking about what they really want to do with their lives. That's just an example of one episode that I felt like I kinda got that I realized like, oh, this is why I do this to unearth the things that I didn't know, people didn't even talk about as much. 

 Rodney
 Or it was even a whole areas that, cause she was, she went to conventions, just all about shallow freeness and it was wild as hell to me, but I'm like, okay, cool. I'm glad to now know who you are, understand who you are, understand what you talk about and understand. This is a whole world of people who Lilly are in union and in community of being, not being people with no children. 

 Josh
 Wow, no kids, no kids welcomed. Right? That's like a 55 plus community. Please don't bring your kids here, as she was sharing, what do you think was her? I know we're talking about another guest that you've experienced, but like what was her, what do you think was her main reason for her personal? She didn't want, 

 Rodney
 I think it all boiled down to. 

 Josh
 Personal interesting to me, man. 

 Rodney
 It, it is interesting. I think from what I can recollect, she always had the kind of disdain of the idea of her being a mother, I believe. But she just did. She was never like for the idea of being a mother for so many different reasons, like, the, the changes to your body, the, the aspect that it feels almost like a requirement and an obligation. Once you get married, it's like, oh, once you get married, you got to have kids. And it's like, well, why? Like we enjoy ourselves. We enjoy having our money and disposable income. I like this existence. Why do I need to do anything else? Like if this is what I wanted, this is the thing that I enjoyed the most. This is a, a goal that I've reached and I've, and it never changed. It's never like it changed for her. 

 Rodney
 I think that was a big part of why she kind of, looked into that particular area of studying and found ways to, create language around then for people who maybe feel the same, because I know everybody doesn't really want to, but I understand that as a pressure globally, for everybody to just procreate and, and multiply. 

 Josh
 Yeah, you said you started podcasting because you didn't want to go crazy. Right? You, you felt that you were feeling, you felt you were being rejected in the professional workplace and even while in school and you said I did this not to go crazy. Yeah. Did that happen? Right? Did you not go crazy here? 

 Rodney
 I think I, yeah, I did not go crazy because I think I then could focus on something else. Like I was still obviously going through interviews and applications and things like that. It took me from August of me moving here. It took me all the way to November to land something. Wow. That means my podcasts were started in September of that year. And, and yeah, so we talked about doing my podcast for a solid, good almost month and some change before I could even get a job. And, and I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it immediately learning that I'm learning, just learning how this works, learning about, okay, this is how I can edit sound. And I was saving. I was saving as much as I could to try to buy equipment as soon as possible to be able to, improve my quality of sound and understanding how to use these particular editing softwares, to be able to continuously improve my show. 

 Rodney
 I already had an act for, graphic design. So I design everything from my logos. I designed a new design, a new cover art for every single episode. I I'm up to about 203 episodes at this point. I always have been kind of savvy when it comes to softwares and editing and things like that. The video editing the sound editing, the graphic design, the marketing, the recording, the hosting, the overall every aspect of the show is all been me. From the jump, so it's, I think that was what made me not go crazy because I gave myself a lot to do that was a product that I could be happy for a product that was kind of encapsulated in time for me to be able to be like, oh, I remember that it's all know. That was what I remember when that was going on. Or if I was talking about something that was, evergreen or timely or whatever it was. 

 Rodney
 Oh. Just even something in the moment I love that I've been able to capture these things. One thing that my therapist said that he said, it's the benefits that people get from journaling. Being able to write them, say, write things out. You probably get it times 10 because you podcast, you could literally go back five years from now and hear yourself thinking in a specific way, talking in a specific way, looking at that date, thinking about where you were when you recorded that, what, how you felt about yourself, how you felt about life. That's hell of a, a journal in a way. I was like, damn, I never thought about it like that, but it makes sense, 

 Josh
 Bro. You mentioned your therapist, dude only f****d up people use therapists. Right. That, is that the, is that what you thought about before you went in, because I've gone through therapy, I've gone into coaching and counseling. I've had, I've had all, a lot of life work done on this fella before asking for help. I was ashamed. I was fearful. What kind of, what will people think? You mentioned it just openly here on a recorded thing and I appreciate your openness about it. Yeah. Talk to us about that if you don't mind. 

 Rodney
 Oh, for sure. For me, I don't think I was ever too shameful or kind of lean into the overall stigma therapy. I think I just didn't go. Or didn't think honestly, I think if any stigma that I believed it was the price, it was the rate of the, the cost of it overall. Like, oh, the imagery that I seen growing up was, oh, white Jewish guy sitting on a couch talking to what I'm saying? And in a very nice office. In my head, I'm thinking like this cannot be something that's just, cause if this was easy for everybody to get, the bill was inexpensive, everybody would do, anybody would do it. And, but then once I learned, once I, investigated into therapy, I think the space that I was in, honestly, wasn't that bad. I was, I was really on an up like on a, on a true incliner in terms of my mood, in terms of how I felt about myself. 

 Rodney
 I honestly just that all of my friends then there, after, being in therapy for probably about a year saying like, go, when you're feeling good, you might open up a lot more, ? Cause when you're feeling bad, you may feel a little more shame. You may feel more guarded and all those different things. I think for me, I started going to therapy in 2019 in late July of 2019. I was in a space to where I just realized that I had a quote unquote financial anxiety. I didn't think that was a real thing. I thought that I'm like, yeah, this is something that everybody probably has. Everybody's, anxious around money, anxious about money or whatever it is. I learned, and I went to my therapist and he kind of, validated my feelings to let me know like, yeah, a lot of people feel this, but it's still can be specific on how it shows up to you. 

 Rodney
 For me it was genuinely when I got paid, it felt the exact same as when I was on my last few dollars in my account, I'd never, I never, I couldn't feel a joy from earning money. And that was weird. It's not, that's not rational. I that's how I knew it was something up. It's something I need to figure out what myself and I think it was because I was so used to just not having that. I was just like, kind of just like the money I get is going to be gone soon. Why even get happy about, and I just, or the money I get, how can I make sure that it doesn't go soon? What decisions do I need to make? What habits do I need to change? Because I feel like I'm being responsible, but it feels like I still am broke. 

 Rodney
 I feel like how has, how are these two things happening? I'm not, I'm not splurging on things. I'm not treating my stuff. I felt like I was a very neat based person where I was barely ever traveling. I was barely, I would, saving to do anything nice for myself. It's like, how in the hell am I not having funds? Or why am I always kind of just running down to zero? Every time I get paid, what's going on, what's happening with me. I think that was what I realized was just, going to therapy, kind of unpacked, so many different things about myself. And I, I encourage everybody to go. Even if you, even if it's something that you don't feel comfortable doing on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, s**t, go once a month, go two, three times a year. Like, do what makes sense? Cause I feel like if you will be a person who checks in on your teeth, checks in, on your body checks in on all these other aspects of who you are as a person, why wouldn't you check on your mind? 

 Rodney
 Why don't you check on your overall behavior? Cause that's the thing that's going to be a forever growing thing. You can have a therapist your whole life, you might not, you're going to not need a pediatrician at a point in time in your life. You're going to not need your, you currently, you may not need a podiatrist currently. You might not need a chiropractor. Currently. You might not need some type of geriatric surgeon in some way, shape or form, but you may one day, but a therapist, you can have one of those from now until the day you die. 

 Josh
 You just typed in Google one day, you're like money, anxiety therapist or something like that. 

 Rodney
 Yeah, basically that was what I did. I was just like, I was, I just could, I just really thought about the feeling that I was feeling. I was just like, yeah, I'm gonna see if this is a thing. Cause maybe it is who knows? I don't know. Financial anxiety came up in a bunch of examples of what that is and why that is. It's obviously one of the most popular versions or kind of labeled anxieties that people kind of go through in the world because it's, you constantly are thinking about, the rat race, I guess that is the quote unquote rat race that people speak to feeling like they have to keep up feeling like they have to stay moving someone. They have to have money at every point and second feeling like they had to sacrifice their time to have money in so many different ways because if they don't, are they really living? 

 Rodney
 If they don't have it? You know? It's a perspective change that I think a lot of people need. I think for me it was me redefining what money meant to me that I think finally broke me from that mindset to a degree. 

 Josh
 Yeah. Not going crazy podcasting and therapists right in therapy. I've been doing this for a while too. I found that at being a podcast host is therapy for me. So many different times. I get to talk with some of the world's leading, renowned leading experts in happiness or this or that. I can ask them whatever the hell questions I want and I'm getting it for free man. Yeah, it's been a great journey and it's helped. It's helped me connect with a lot of cool people, but also for me not to go crazy too. What about the downsides of podcasting? Have you ever received any backlash or hate mail or negative stuff from doing what you're doing? 

 Rodney
 I believe it's fair. I think it's fairly minimal. I think I'm, I think if anything, people probably would like for me to be quite honest, I think it's fairly minimal because I think I don't really put myself in a space to have, too many adversarial or, adversarial type of conversations. I think I talk about controversial things, but the people that I may talk about them with, if I'm choosing to talk about them with anyone, I think we both are more closer to being on the same side that not, but I definitely have been, that's been a feedback that I've gotten from listeners is that, oh Rodney, I think you will be perfect to talk about this real, spicy topic or this thing that's happening. Certainly since I'm on social media, I think I've pivoted a lot of my social media content, not even just things about done via the podcast to, approach somebody who's kind of, more racier topics. 

 Rodney
 And, and I think that's definitely what the world wants it, if it bleeds, it leaves it's kind of the game of all forms of media. So I. 

 Josh
 Think one last time again, if it, what it, 

 Rodney
 If it bleeds, it leads, it's a, yeah, it's a news, a news media term that, if it's that deep, if it's that cutting edge, and then it's probably going to be a good story. I'll probably work. We're talking murders, fires, war, guns, race, death of a celebrity, celebrity scandal, any combination of those things, ? If I come on and talk about, I, I, I always thought like, yeah, I could always kind of, sell my own sense of true interest integrity and just find and create content just around a bunch of, controversial things, oh, I have, in the years of Trump's presidency, I can have a episode every week talking about how terrible Trump is and how terrible his followers are and all these different things. Or I could just do what I want, cause I'm like, I there's so many other people who do that. 

 Rodney
 There's so many people who want to do that and do that from various different angles where they are pro or con or kind of in between. For me it was just like, no, I always want to, I want to create the word I want to create for my podcast. I want people who come to me to know that it's either going to be informative and attaining or a, a great inspirational escape in the moment that they listen and not something that is just adding to the fodder of the social media, because something bad is going to train everyday. 

 Josh
 Yeah. I tell you, that was adding to the fodder as a content creator, being on podcasts for awhile and YouTube and such like that and have a following, right? Like these people won't follow me into a battle, but they'll, click my, they'll click my LinkedIn or they'll subscribe or whatever, we use the word followers really loosely. Yeah. When it comes to being a creator and I'd love your, hear your thoughts on this, like, do you ever get tempted to create something that, will get the clicks? We'll get the following, we'll create the, if it bleeds, it leads. Yeah. Do you ever get your, do you ever feel tempted by that? 

 Rodney
 Yeah, I think I have, I definitely feel like I have done it honestly. It was, it was shoot the incident. The, the slap heard around the world by a will to Chris Rock's face. Definitely quickly created a piece of content that, brought a lot of different to my page. And it created an interesting conversation. All I said was just, basically I was siding with this being a situation that everybody is blowing out of proportion blowing extremely out of proportion because it's only matters because it's at the Oscars it's happened on the street that this happened anywhere else. I highly doubt that people would make this into the story of this magnitude. Also I didn't what came from that me posting that was, I think over like 30,000 plays on Instagram reels and a bunch of comments, I mean, people were fighting and who was at the point to where I had to stop responding to the comments and they were fighting other people in the comments. 

 Rodney
 They were basically just arguing and debating about, this being a sign of violence and how we can't condone this. You're condoning violence on a person and all these different things. A lot of people who had, red, white, and blue and red, white, and blue flags in their abbeys and things like that to me, kind of, it was very obtuse to say these things to speak to violence in a way that is very micro scopic. We're talking about two singular people doing something to each other. And, and it's like, they had like done memorabilia and all these things. It's not like I'm anti-gun or any of those things. It's just the fact of what are we talking about? Like, we're talking about a true social full pie by way of a person that both of these people would probably feel very much a lot of ways about that situation. 

 Rodney
 I can imagine. There's probably a lot of shame on will Smith's side of things as well for even doing that and getting, kind of allowing himself to rise to that type of action. This is not the prime example of what violence can look like in America. Right. And I think that what was crazy, how vindicated a lot of people were once, like the shooting of you've already happens, and there's not this cause it was a lot of fervor around that slap. It was a lot of A-listers and B list celebrities basically saying they were shocked and trauma. They were traumatized by seeing this and they still are shook by this. And you know, he, what was it? Judd Apatow said that he could have killed Chris rock. It was just so much calamity and confusion all on the internet from people who are, who have such a great father who has such large followings and who have, so much a claim and what they do. 

 Rodney
 When it came down time for something that we all believed to be a complete tragedy, an overall universal tragedy, there's crickets. There's not a bunch of tweets. There's not, Hey saying we need to change things or how could this happen or we need justice or these children don't deserve these things. It's quiet. It's crickets. Yeah. That Sid singular situation was an example of toxic masculinity and violence in America. I think that's b******t, and that's, and that was kind of me kind of leaning into the idea of something that was a controversial thing. To be quite honest until I made that post, I didn't think I was on the side. That was not going to be agree with, to be quite honest. I thought a lot of people were going to agree with what I was about to say, but to learn that it seemed like it was more of a, almost 60, 40 split and 60 was to Chris, people kind of feeling like, and I, what I didn't like, I'd never seen so many men and so many white men specifically on the internet speaking toxic masculinity and all these various things, because I feel like the media that I've seen, the media that I've consumed as people, if anything, try to invalidate that to even be a real thing or the examples of toxic masculinity to not even be what that is. 

 Rodney
 It's so funny to me how the tables turn and let you know now we receive this as, oh yeah, this is what this is. This is what that is. It was like, okay, this is b******t, but okay, there we go. Here we go. You know? 

 Josh
 Well, b******t. As you said, if it bleeds, it leads, the things that should get the publicity. 

 Rodney
 Yeah. 

 Josh
 Crickets. 

 Rodney
 Yeah. 

 Josh
 The things that should get major, push crickets, that things, that, stuff like that. I mean, it, like you said, if that happened on the streets, nobody would give a damn. 

 Rodney
 Yeah. 

 Josh
 Oh man. As a creator content creator and such like that, one of my, one of I'm thankful for this, I'm so glad I had a lot of early on failures. I had an, I had, I built some shows and I hit some audience, but I wasn't prepared for audience. Then, as I first got started, I had to go through some character life lessons. I had to get kicked in the nuts a few times what we would call humbling before I was able to maybe stand under the weight of publicity or under the weight of a following. And I'm just learning that now. And I'm 40 years old. How do you, how do you, what, how do you stay grounded? How do you stay? I'm assuming, right. Because we're just getting to know each other. How do you stay? I don't know if you are not right. 

 Josh
 How do you stay humble? How do you stay rooted in your belief systems? How do you do this? When you get a lot of different opinions thrown at you get people reaching out and saying, you should do this and they should all over you. Right. How do you stay rooted? 

 Rodney
 I think for me, I'm from a small town, I'm from a small town in Tennessee. I think the foundation of who I am is a very grounded space because I know what it's like to be from a place that people never heard of. I know what it's like to be from a town that's not so big and doesn't have everything. It doesn't have all, it doesn't have a large buildings and lake or beach access, or, just a bunch of people with a bunch of money. You can see it in the streets, Porsche's, and Ferrari's driving around on the expressways and I'm not from any of that, on the way back to the house that I grew up in, you're going to pass to soybean fields in the cotton field, ? And, and I love, and I think that, and it's a very quiet neighborhood that I grew up in too. 

 Rodney
 It's like for me, the grounding is my family and my upbringing more than anything, because that's always going to be with me. I'm always going to be any time I introduce myself, I'm walking in the room and I'm letting people know that I'm Rodney Perry from Jackson, Tennessee. I'm never, even though I've lived in Chicago, I've lived in Atlanta, Georgia. I've never been that person to be like, oh, I'm from this place first about way of, or, any of those variations of, introductions of where you're from. I think I've all I've always led with. I'm from Jackson, Tennessee, so that people can know who I am first. Because if I say I'm from Atlanta, you're going to get a particular, impression. If I say, I'm from Chicago, you're going to get a particular impression. This is where I live. I'm from this place. This is cause that's where I'm always going to be from, no matter how many years I live in a particular place, no matter how much I do, no matter how much I established myself, I'm only from one place. 

 Rodney
 I think that's kind of where my ground, it kind of comes from because my mom is a very simple Southern woman who likes to decorate, likes to cook food and be around family. And that's really, it. It has like at the end of the day, that's who I'm doing it for. I can make, I can get as many followers as I can. I can, have, do great business and work with so many different people. At the end of the day, when the holidays come, when birthdays come, when special moments come, I'm going back to Jackson, Tennessee to celebrate, ? It's never going to be a situation of, oh, we're moving everybody out or we're never, we're gonna do all these things. I'm a, I'm a LA. 

 Josh
 Oh, you muted. You must've knocked out your mic. Oh, there you go. 

 Rodney
 Can you hear me now? 

 Josh
 Yeah, I got you, buddy. 

 Rodney
 Okay, cool. 

 Josh
 There's yeah. There's of crackle in there. Let me. 

 Rodney
 See. 

 Josh
 All right. This guy talks with his hands and he knocked us Mike over. We started talking about food, about holidays, about going back to Tennessee and being with the family and such like that. You said one thing you said I'm rooted in the foundation of who I am. 

 Rodney
 Yeah. 

 Josh
 In your travels meeting, other people, have you found dudes maybe who don't have a firm foundation in who they are? Right. All right. Talk to us talked about what you observed or what you've experienced there. 

 Rodney
 Hell yeah. I feel like I, I think our men need to notice who they are. They need to become aware, what? You caught wind, psychologists, philosophers, anybody, what they call a true awareness of who you are like, who, how do you stand up? Are you short? Are you tall? Are you fat? Are you slim? Are you, do you have a particular, Abel, Abel NIST to you, are you athletic? Are you slow? Are you smart? All these various ASP attributes that you have to notice about yourself and you have to notice those things and you have to stand in those things. You have to be okay with those things. You gotta be proud of those things even, and in some way, shape or form. I think there's a proper way to do all those things. For me, I think I've figured it out fairly early, being from Jackson, Tennessee, it was a very quiet place, very small town, but I always had very big city dreams. 

 Rodney
 I was very aspirational and very ambitious to get away and get out. I think in being growing up in that small, quiet neighborhood, it gave me a lot of time to just to be with myself and just to be kind of in the peace and silence of a country town. I got to know me, I got to hear me. I got to be with myself and just that'd be it. I think a lot of young men and grown men, even who still are trying to find themselves are in spaces where they genuinely don't know how to just be and be okay with it because very easily men are kind of pushed into being in particular categories. Okay. You're you're seven. Now you're going to go on and play soccer. You're going to play baseball. I'm gonna play softball. Okay. Don't really didn't know. I really care to what I, I mean, this is what everybody else is doing. 

 Rodney
 I guess I got to do it too. That's what you think as a child, you just follow along, you've just follow along. You just follow you, obey what people put in front of you. You become a teenager and now you can make your own choices. You may think, oh, okay, well I play baseball then I guess I'm gonna keep playing. Even though you might have an interest in this, maybe you have an interest in animation. Maybe we have an interest in this, but you are, you're six to look pretty athletic look pretty handsome. Everybody's pushing you to continue to do sports. Everybody's pushing. You continue to be that type of guy, even though you may, yourself to be more than that or not even more than it, that Anson and you just kind of go about it. You know? For me, I believe a lot of young men have to take the time to notice who they are to be aware of who they are. 

 Rodney
 I think that is really the genuine first step to being able to define who you want to be as a person. Because I think a lot of managers walking around here real on self-defined, my dad was a lawyer. That's why I went to law school. My dad was a doctor. That's why I went, and that's okay. I don't think that's wrong. I think that it's, it has to be aligned with who you are, because there's some people where they're the generational talented people where, they keep the family business or the family, career path going. As we see it's a common trope that we see in movies and television. That's not everybody's story. Everybody doesn't want to be that everybody doesn't want to do that. There should be no shame around it. It should be, if anything, help, like, oh, okay, let's figure out how we, how are we going to get you to get to do what you want to do? 

 Rodney
 How can we make your journey into one that's new and not quote unquote detrimental to the family business or detrimental to the family tradition. Because then what, then it's all about just being who everybody else wants us to be. And not who we want to be. 

 Josh
 Yeah. You talk about being good with you, right? You said, young dudes need to learn this and they need to invest the time. Yeah. Why do you think us guys don't like take the time to figure out who the hell we are and then learn to be okay with it? 

 Rodney
 Yeah. I mean, I think, and I hope I'm saying it correctly. I feel that when people define what a man is usually all utility based. It's all based off of use. It's all based off action in some way, shape or form a man provides a man, his provider, man, his protector, a man brings home the bacon. A man creates a home, builds a house is the foundation is the backbone of the family is the head of household is the leader of the pack is the, still the tailor of the family. So many different things. All those things are based in a position in action. None of those things have to do with who that person really is though. That's just cause that's something that anybody could do. In certain family, families, and households you'll have two months, you might have just a single mom and she has to be all of those things. 

 Rodney
 What is, so those are actions that can be filled. The quality of those actions is, is debatable. I think that more than anything, men, aren't just what they can do. I think as a young child, you're allowed to be, I think young men are from a societal standpoint, coddled enough to be able to really kind of live free until we can't, until we become closer and closer to grown men, then we have to get more and more responsible. I think a lot of people don't realize that like when you're young, you get to play sports. If you get to play or you get to bump your head, you get to scratch me. You get to live a lot of life. It just kind of diminishes as you get older and older, you become a teenager and he's like, you need to slow down and you'd get some responsibility. 

 Rodney
 You, it's your, it's your responsibility to wash the car. It's your responsibility to do these chores. It's your responsibility to go find a job. Cause we can't keep giving you this much allowance. You graduate. It's your responsibility to make sure you are up on these grades, your responsibility to make sure you get an internship that you can find a job after school. You enter into the new world. It's like, you're you are your responsibility now. It's like, when have you really had the real true chance to be that in full and preparedness? They're telling you to be responsible for a person that you barely even know. As you, cause all you've had to do is play and gradually be kind of gradually be put into a responsible person. In all that stance all that time, there's no real emphasis on you just understanding who you are or understanding what you like, because it was always going to be based on what everybody else needed you to do at the time. 

 Rodney
 I need you to cut the grass. I need you to do this. I need you to do that. I need you to stay on these grades. Don't worry about what your future is like right now. Don't worry about any of those things. We're going to take care of that. We're going to buy that car for you. We're going to do this. We're going to do that. We don't want you to worry about that. Life is too hard for, some people we don't want you to do that. I didn't have to do that. Or I had to work hard and I don't want that for my children. I don't want that for you and so on and so forth and all those moments, it only creates a space to where people don't want to know who they are, who to understand who they are in every single way, because it feels like everything is kind of almost planned for them in a way, a lot of young men, I think a lot of things feel that way. 

 Rodney
 They show any promise or any type of talent in a particular way. Everybody just kind of pushes them down that road, ? There's is that really them finding out who they are though, are they really actually spending the time to find out who they are though? They may be in the room, just reading a book, just sitting alone, sitting in silence, go outside and play. We don't know what that moment was for them. We don't know what that silence, what that being, just being tranquil was for them or just having the dialogue, having the conversations. How often are young boys asked, how do you feel about yourself? Asked what do you, what is it that you like about you? Do you ever feel sad and what makes you feel sad? Do you ever feel angry and what makes you feel angry? Because that's how you learn who you are. 

 Rodney
 That's how people will know who you are because they know not to do certain things. They know this is what, how this affects you. When you're a child, you can possibly verbalize these things in very simple ways, but who's caring. Who's can have a child with pain. So I think that she's going to. 

 Josh
 Seen not heard, 

 Rodney
 Right? Yup, yup. Seen not heard. And, and I think that's a big issue that we find with so many different people. As I say, I say this all the time and I think a lot of people don't understand it until I tell them the story of what may be come up with this concept. Because for a long time, I thought it was only a, a black man's kind of burden is the current state of what patriarchy is. And just in America specifically. That is, I thought that it was a dead end for us because it's like if patriarchy is a system that was set up and like a construct that was set up to be able to keep men in this leadership role and to kind of, favor these particular things and this be kind of a S a male centered world, it's a man's world type of thing. 

 Rodney
 How are we benefiting from this as being male? I've noticed, like I've seen too many things that really don't seem to benefit us. You have people like, the LeBrons of the world who can get to the top, the best player in the world, but somebody still calls him n****r on his, on his side, on his eyes, the side of his house. This is the person who is Lily crossed every single over every single statistic that is for so many black men growing up in Akron, Ohio, but yet, and he's arguably seen as one of the greatest players of all time, but here we are, he still can belittled in some way, shape or form in this country. The story that I love to give people is for the people who don't know who Anthony Bordain is, who is a white man who grew up in the east coast, was he was basically on kind of addicted to substances at an early age in his late teen years, ended up moving and relocating to New York, washing dishes at a restaurant working his way up to becoming a top shelf, top chef writing, a book that book making him world renowned for his writing and his also his culinary skills. 

 Rodney
 Leading him to live, becoming the top person to basically talk about traveling and food, where he basically created the genre himself and has basically went and shown people how to do it the best way to where he's having them. Five-star dinners and also street food in the same country. And it's very humbling. It's very inspiring. It's very, humanitarian vibes, and I'm very, anthropological in a way, cause he's really just capturing the world and people. That man killed himself in a five star suite and Paris alone, and we really don't know what he was going through now to get to that point. To me, it's like, what is it that you can get? You can get the whole world. You can have it be one of the most interesting people in the world have money. Your job is literally traveling to different countries and trying food. 

 Rodney
 You hear, you are not happy with yourself. Same story with Robin Williams is Robin Williams. Probably one of the most loved people in history just for works that he's done and the talent that he showed us. And he wasn't happy with himself either. You know? And I think that's what I've learned. Cause the only common denominator is that we all are following a particular role. We all are kind of trying to follow suit or we have to make money. We have to do, we have to contribute to society. We have to be honorable men and we have to be whatever. How much has that really benefited us? Us kind of, compartmentalizing our emotions, putting everything to the side and just working for so much of our lives, ignoring the issues that we may have that may be people with judges for if we vocalize those issues, we can't get can't be clammed up. 

 Rodney
 That's all I'm saying. Like we can't be clammed up and we can't hate parts of ourselves because to me, I think that's the ultimate thing is just mental destruction. 

 Josh
 Yeah, bro, what is it? Right. I see this in, I saw this in myself. I, like, God, I, it took me forever to try to understand this. I constantly trying to get approval, trying constantly trying to be validated from external constantly. When I make enough money, build my next company, hit this level in sports, do this, them I'll have respect. Then I'll do this. And I see this with dudes, right? I mean, walk down the road, look at people's cars and you'll see the same exact, same exact thing that I was experiencing when I was 13. When I was 30, when I'm learning it at age 40, we're constantly trying to get people to go look at me. I'm an important, I'm loved, I'm validated. I've made it. Yet you mentioned here's some guys that hit the top and they're still not getting the respect. 

 Josh
 Here's some guys that made it to the top and still hate themselves. What's the point or how do we fix it? 

 Rodney
 Yeah. I mean, honestly, it's a hard, it's a hard answer to answer for real. I think that what I've gathered more than anything from things I've read from things that I've kind of learned on my own and things I've observed from other men that I think are really living a pretty balanced and whole life as far as definitely accepting yourself for who you are and everything that you come with is a big first step before you do anything for you can even heal any part of yourself. You got to know that you are hurt. You gotta acknowledge that you are hurt. You got acknowledged that there is work to be done, that you are not in, not perfect in all right. Very much imperfect. You have flaws that you may not have that you might find unfavorable, not the world. You might not like about yourself. 

 Rodney
 I think you get to a point of self compassion, self nurturing, self acceptance. At that self-acceptance you feed into that. You learn how to manage that. You learn how to show up with that means something that you are proud to show up with. You have so many people, I think the best way to describe it as the people who are proudly neurodivergent, that's the best example that I can give is like people who learn that they have ADHD or learned that they have autism and they don't allow that to change the way people treat them. They don't allow that to change the way that people approach them. They still show up as them like, yeah, I talk, I may talk funny or I may think a different way, or I may approach life a different way, but I am who I am and I deserve love. 

 Rodney
 I deserve to be loved. I deserve people to care for me. I deserve for people to treat me equally, regardless of what it is they believe I am. I think that all men can take that exact same route. It doesn't include you in crushing on someone else's freedom and crushing on someone else's being is Lily. It's just you being you. I believe if everybody just accepted themselves, love themselves and prioritize themselves in a particular way. It'll create space for everybody to be good with everyone else. Because if we always are making sure we're advocating for self first, then EV, and if everybody does that, we're never stepping on toes because I'm just saying I'm in my square, I'm in my box. I'm doing everything I need, because there's always a way to convey what it is that you need. Oh, I don't really want to talk to people today. 

 Rodney
 I'm going to tell everybody that talks to me every day. Hey, I need a day. If, and if you never want to talk to them about it, that is your prerogative. If you want to catch up with them and tell them what's going on, you can do that too. I think the problem is that a lot of people either choose not to do that at all and still go through and kind of let people unpack on them and let people involve them into whatever they got going on or whatever their issue is. You have your own thing and you keep putting it to the side. You keep shelving your feelings, shelving what you feel about you and what you feel about yourself in the world at this time. And you've got to prioritize yourself. You got to set that boundary. You got to let people know, Hey, not today. 

 Rodney
 I think a lot of, I think going to therapy is one thing, but I think truly using what we have been doing for so long as men have been feeling like utility, feeling like we are only as good as the things that we do and how much money that we make. That is where our value lies and how much respect we get from the things that we do to me, I felt like flipping that sense of action on his head to solve the issues for ourselves. A big thing that I kind of discovered in reading the seven laws of the seven spiritual laws of success by Deepak Chopra was that I really enjoy the actionable things that he said after every law get outside and ground yourself meditate every day, be within nature. When you walk into the room, give compliments and genuine compliments, even if it's as simple as I love your head, I love this. 

 Rodney
 I love that it already sets a different tone. It already comes in with a positive energy. You're, you're starting, you're initiating what you want. This experience will be. So it's all these actionable things. You have an adverse feeling about yourself and an adverse feeling about the world as a whole, you got to get actionable because that's what you would do when you're motivated to get some money. When you're motivated to do something for somebody else, when you motivated to protect and provide, you will get up and do something about it. It comes to you got to get up and do something about it. I was, I remember being very frustrated with the snow this past winter and being. 

 Josh
 Terrible. 

 Rodney
 Yeah. I remember vocalizing that to a few friends and all of them were basically pushing back at me, like, damn, why are you so crappy about it? Like you live in Chicago. It is what it is. Like, look like change our perspective on it. Cause if you gotta be there, you gotta kinda, you get your car, you got it. You got to. I was like, damn not everybody just, but I honestly thought about, I was like, yeah, what? I've been carrying this for a long time, like feeling this way about the snow feeling this way about the cold feeling this way about all these things. It's like, is this going to be the thing that controls me that affects my mood that has power over me. And I was like, hell no. So what did I do? I, Lily, I grabbed my camera. I put, I put everything on. 

 Rodney
 We just got like about 11 inches of snow. I just went for a walk in the middle of the snow and just, it took my time, went to Starbucks and I filmed the whole thing and made a little cool, quick little blog about it, about me, about why I did it and was in a snows, no snotty, it's cold as hell stopped and seen a book because it was like the, little library, little neighborhood library, things I had took a book from that went to Starbucks, got a breakfast sandwich, got a drink, sat down, read a book, walked home. Lily edited the video right in that moment and kept going like a song popped in my head. I kept replaying it and made this very unpleasant experience into a pleasant one. I think that is how you, that is how we start to do those things. 

 Rodney
 If you, a man who genuinely does not like the idea of, what your responsibilities are and people kind of, having particular expectations are put placing obligations and creating what your obligations are, let it be known and do something about it. You get up and do something about it. I think because the things that you do for yourself that only benefits you are going to always be something that needed. There's nothing that you can run out of having a morning ritual or night ritual and particular habits usually only affect you. You getting up and brushing your teeth, you getting up and making a bed. You're getting up and doing pushups and exercising. It only really aids you. It, the consistency of that, the consistency of self-advocating and being actionable. It just truly just spills over to else who's around you. Because if you're now happy a person you're probably more gracious, probably easier to talk to. 

 Rodney
 You're probably willing to help even better in an even more fast and more efficient way, because you have done more for yourself today. You have everybody else and your job and your family and so on and so forth, you got to do something for you. You feel the mood to, when you're feeling in the mood, get up and do something about it. 

 Josh
 I appreciate you sharing that. When you were walking in the snow, you said you grabbed a book and a song popped in your head. What book did you read? 

 Rodney
 The book is actually over there. I forgot it's by shoot. I forgot the name of it. I think it's called like quite frankly by I have, I had to get an and let you know, but the song, I do remember the song, it was Anthony David's forevermore. It's actually funny that came up to my mind because it's, I think it's a song about like it's a wedding song almost, but it's like a very, this Neo soul. It had like a cool, production and real happy vibe to it. I think that's why it came to mind is that I needed like a mood lifter for a song I haven't heard and even thought about in quite some time. I just played it back and forth, back and forth as I was walking on this and yeah, and like petty book and the book was written by somebody who I really liked the way she writes too. 

 Rodney
 It was kind of a, a letter of essays. It was a very random book, but it was a letter of essays kind of explaining, just kind of how her life is today and being lazy and working from home and all these different things. And it was came out pre pandemic. It was kind of funny to kind of read that cause that's literally everybody's life and just going to just work so many people's lives is working from home right now. It was definitely a mood lift and just, eating a good sandwich, getting a nice little matcha latte and a warm you up for the next, with a walk back and yeah. Yeah. But it definitely made me feel better. I think then thereafter, every time it snowed, I think I didn't care as much. It didn't affect me as much. I just put my boots on, grabbed my Parker and handle my day. 

 Josh
 Give a shout out man, to where people can find your podcast and connect with you. 

 Rodney
 Yeah. You can find my podcast everywhere, podcasts or stream at the simply king podcast. I can, I can send you over some of those links and you can follow me everywhere. It Kings underscore memoirs. I make content that is all about, wellness and wholeness and just a man evolving more than anything, ? Come and, have some good conversations I do on my take TAC Kings on score memoirs on all social media platforms. I've just started a series called the daily king where I literally, every day I give you some new piece of content, give you a word of the day, give you a song to start the week off that you maybe never heard, give you a saying on Saturdays, give you some sentiments, some sentimental, miss on Sundays, Thursdays, a positivity and Tuesdays, talking and having a conversation. And, and so yeah, definitely you, I got a lot of, and also have a Patrion as well. 

 Rodney
 That's a riding period, AKA king on Patriot deck. Definitely check that out. Great tears, a lot of different things. It's going to be even more as the year kind of gums. It's all about self-improvement and creative support is what the Patrion is really all about. Giving people, affirmations, giving people resources, having, starting dialogues about, self-improving but also if you are a creative that it just feels like you need more helping community. Definitely. I implore you to joined one of the tiers, but yeah, yeah. Follow me everywhere. 

 Josh
 All right. During this interview, man, there's probably something I should have asked you or a question I should have brought up, but completely screwed up and did not. What question should I have asked you or do you wish that someone would ask you. 

 Rodney
 Damn? That's a good question. That's a good question. Okay. Damn. That is so good. That was really good. I, I would say, damn, I don't know. I don't know. There's a go, I've stopped and I'm using that stuff for questions. So that's a really good one. 

 Josh
 I got one more for you for. 

 Rodney
 Sure. 

 Josh
 King, when did you become king? Right. So it's Rodney Perry. AKA king. Yes. When did you become, is that a title or an identity to, 

 Rodney
 I like to say, I believe in the idea of being of a higher selves. I think if you think of higher self as your are, the best version of you or where your intuition is or you then, whatever you want to call it. I think that's kind of the name of my higher self. When I write the pen name that I use is king. When I, do so many different things that are creative, it's always king. That is the thing. I think it's because, our creativity comes from somewhere. Our inspiration comes from somewhere. Now I am a person who is, I believe to be a very spiritual individual. I think for me, the moniker cane really is a, a powerful name of me discovering who I am and what I am and what, how I wanted to represent myself. Also it's also a real world context who I am. 

 Rodney
 My name is Rodney Perry, R O D N E Y. And there's not too many famous knees. Growing up in Southern and the south during, in the, early nineties and early two thousands kids only know Rodney king, they only know Rodney king gets a name, that's even close to mine. That was a name that I was getting thrown around. That was being placed him by my name or placed as a, as something that people would like to call me for quite some time. I just kind of just let it roll off my back, but I also felt very uncomfortable about that. Like, I don't want to be associated with this, not no shade to that man and that incident, but it's just like, that's not a cool thing to be associated with. Once I kind of came into who I am, kind of came into what I am, came to, how I am, all these various things I had to redefine what that meant because people weren't going to stop people weren't going to call me anything. 

 Rodney
 Definitely. I think what was interesting about it was they would call me that because I think I gave that energy to, I was always in charge of things. I was always running for things, SGA presidents and president over this and chairman over that, ambassador for this and that. I was always a very authoritative and, natural born leader in a way. It was it made sense to me to call myself that and it didn't, I didn't reject it in a way that only rejected the semantics of Rodney king, but king never sounded bad to me. And, and, and people willingly calling me that never really turned me off. I had to let it be known like this is why I call myself that this is why I laugh for people to call myself that and redefine what that meant for me, because if I'm going to keep letting it happen, it has to be a powerful, meaning, something meaningful to me and not just something coincidentally to everybody else, 

 Josh
 Or so dudes listening visit simply king. You can find that anywhere podcasts are distributed and on any major directory, listen and follow, listen, what he's learning and sharing as always reach out to our guests. I, thanks for being on the show, find a way to support them, or if you're in need of support or help, if you're, massively creative and you need that community that will lift you up and now I'll give you some resources and some proclamations and some w w what was the other thing that you do? 

 Rodney
 Yeah. Yeah. Affirmations. I'm also just yet tripping out of support. In terms of just giving you a particular resources as well, and just kind of making it easier for you to, manage and be a full-time creative, or just a part-time creative, however you really want to spend it. So, yeah. 

 Josh
 Cool, cool. If you guys are in that need of support, man, reach out to our guests, say, thanks. All their contact information will be in the show notes to this episode. If you're working on something or need some help in life, and you need someone, you can always head over to uncensored advice for men.com, fill out a quick form and I'll plug in with maybe one of our past guests, or if you have something to share with the community, same place, fill out a quick form and start out the conversation. I love you guys. This show's for you. We'll talk to you all on the next episode. See you guys.