00:01:26.540Listen to biggest rivalries of all time on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:01:35.920I'm Mimi Brown, and every day on Front Page Podcast, I help you make sense of the stories shaping our world.
00:01:42.140Each day, I break down the biggest headlines.
00:01:44.980Canada's trade fight with the U.S. just escalated again, and Americans could fill it in their wallets.
00:01:50.380And when a story deserves a deeper conversation, I'll sit down with experts, newsmakers, and thought leaders to help you better understand the issue behind the headlines.
00:01:59.840Listen to Front Page from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:02:07.080Putting on my shoes, went to go grab my socks and pass out.
00:02:13.760And come to find out I was diagnosed with a brain tumor.
00:05:03.980He's done world tour on world tour, won a Grammy, got diagnosed with a brain tumor, became vegan, lost 130 pounds, ran three marathons and an Ironman, and is now a Nike athlete.
00:49:41.960That atomic particle, which every one of us are made of, this table, me, you, this microphone, every single thing is made up of atomic particles.
00:50:10.120Well, that changes the reality of everything. Hold on. All of us are vibrations. This is crazy. So we can be at two places at the same time. When I learned this, if I am atomic particle and Nike is one, then that means I'm connected to my dreams.
00:50:35.100We're not separate. I'm already connected. Every single thing that I write in this book, I say it's already done. Time hasn't caught up yet. I'm already connected to everything I want. Every single thing I imagine. When I wake up in the morning, I log into a different type of Instagram.
00:50:51.600like there's Instagram where we like look at pictures and we say I like it I log into this
00:50:59.480Instagram in my head and I'm like I see all these pictures in my life of what makes sense to me and
00:51:05.440I believe there's some innate like knowledge of I know my future like I always knew I was going to
00:51:12.380be an athlete I already knew it and I like the picture and then boom cover runners world magazine
00:51:18.720boom Nike athlete boom commercials with LeBron and Serena all these crazy journeys that I want
00:51:23.500to go on I believe in it so big and I dream so crazy it comes true every time bro I'm undefeated
00:51:30.240bro I said I wanted Oprah to walk into my life literally her producer of 25 years walked straight
00:51:37.720in like I'm talking about I've said to my boy George I said George like I want to work with
00:51:42.400Oprah. Two minutes later, this lady walks past. Her name is Anne. She comes over. George's like,0.96
00:51:50.740Charlie, tell her your story. I said, oh, this is my story. You know, my life story. This is before
00:51:54.880I had any videos out. No connections, no nothing. She starts writing things down. I said, what you
00:51:59.620writing down? She said, oh, I'm meeting with Oprah's producer in 20 minutes. Boom. Oprah's
00:52:04.120producer produced my whole bike across America tour. Everything I've done with the media,
00:52:08.500all the give backs. I always do give backs. So this time last year, two days ago, I started my
00:52:13.760bike ride across America. I was like, I want to do something crazy. Just finish the Ironman.
00:52:19.000I was like, I want to do something crazy, but I don't want it to be about me.
00:52:22.460I wanted to do something bigger than me. The Ironman was about me, but I said, I'm going to
00:52:27.960bike across America and I'm going to make people's dreams come true everywhere I go
00:52:32.640about this big old tour bus. And what do most people do if they buy a tour bus? They put their
00:52:36.600face on the side I was like uh-uh I'm calling this the dream machine tour bus and I made it
00:52:42.900this huge canvas painted like the the the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and I have now on that tour bus
00:52:49.720over 20,000 people's dreams I believe in writing dreams down everybody would write their dreams
00:52:56.120everybody from the Duke Blue Devil Zion everybody has put their dreams on this tour bus as I'm
00:53:01.320biking across America I'm jumping out of trash can there's a dumpster so I wanted to give a car0.80
00:53:06.460to this girl who works at Starbucks. She was put up for adoption, ended up homeless, worked her way1.00
00:53:12.600all the way through high school, going off to college, paying for college by herself, goes to0.98
00:53:17.420college, doesn't have a way to get to work. So she's got like some financial problems. So I wanted
00:53:22.340to give her a car. She has no idea. She works at Starbucks. She's a Starbucks barista. Starbucks
00:53:28.160told me initially I could film in there. Then about 20 minutes before they said, no, they higher
00:53:35.680up, said, you can't do this in here. So I said, okay, can I film outside? They were like, yeah.
00:53:41.300I said, okay, just have her take out the trash. I hide in a dumpster. She comes to take out the0.81
00:53:49.400trash, hop out the dumpster, car pulls up, her teacher's family, everybody was hiding behind
00:53:54.860trees and cars, surprise her with the car, makes national news, CNN, ABC, everybody, like we're
00:54:01.360doing these givebacks. In Atlanta, there was a girl who had an amputated leg and they didn't
00:54:09.200have the money to afford one of the prosthetics you can run in. It was just her dream to be able
00:54:16.280to run again. Beautiful girl named Amira. I said, you know what? This is what we're going to do.
00:54:22.420We're going to give her a leg. We're going to make running in Atlanta cool. You've never seen people
00:54:28.520being a frenzy over running shoes ever. People go in a frenzy over, you know, Jordans, Yeezys,
00:54:34.960Lions, you know, but you've never seen people go in a frenzy over running shoes. So what did I do?
00:54:39.540I bought 305 pairs of off-white shoes, all running shoes. We spent like $280,000. We gave away
00:54:51.200305 pairs of shoes in a scavenger hunt in atlanta 305 to to resemble my my largest weight
00:54:58.500cool we had the city of atlanta in a frenzy i had 150 people in a frenzy 4 000 actually showed up
00:55:06.820151 shoes on one day and amira was there she thought she was just coming to like some little
00:55:12.400motivational speaking event she didn't realize that i gathered all these people there to go on0.61
00:55:17.340our first run with her so we surprised her with the doctors the the the cheetah running leg and
00:55:23.960boom everybody's there to win their shoes the doctors hook her up boom and we all went on a
00:55:29.180run with her so how you have all these dreams you write them out hold on hold on a second bro
00:55:35.020acknowledge that story just for one second i'm i'm like that's telling me how to impulsive i'm
00:55:41.200just all right i'm just like yo soak that in for one second i i that's incredible that i have been
00:55:47.140sitting here listening to you i this is the longest i haven't talked in my entire life
00:55:51.580i'm dead serious bro i uh i did not expect to come in here today and be inspired i just knew
00:56:00.380we had a six o'clock podcast i didn't really know what to expect i am extremely like i don't even
00:56:07.640really i'm shook bro i also i don't know what to say i'm shook bro like like the stuff that you
00:56:12.640were just saying like mike was laser was resonating with me on a level that like had me feeling like
00:56:20.000yo wow dude we have to do better like like bro let me tell you you've been opening up to something
00:56:26.140i felt it bro that right there bro like i was thinking myself i'm like let me tell you where
01:00:49.020But we're talking about mental toughness
01:00:50.960And there's two different types of mental toughness. See, in this country, everybody is getting beat down like mental illness. It's almost like the Navy SEAL test. It's tough. People are living that in their lives. And there's two philosophies.
01:01:05.640in the western world where we live people are like now you got to be tougher like you got to
01:01:12.360be tougher to like but in the eastern in the eastern countries like china they look within
01:01:19.540they get into the meditation they find within so i'm like this mental toughness and this mental
01:01:24.080health i was like what if i compared the eastern philosophies of mental toughness like mr miyagi
01:01:30.160style like i wore this shirt bruce lee like like what if i go to china and i like learn from like
01:01:36.520a mr miyagi on mental toughness and come back to the west and i learn the mental toughness from
01:01:41.920like a navy seal like a david goggins or iron cowboy who did 50 iron 50 iron men's in 50 days
01:01:48.000type mental toughness but we do all these crazy give backs what you say brother navy seal test
01:01:57.540um first off i'm down i'm down done i think it's a fucking phenomenal idea and i would love i would0.97
01:02:05.220love to do that with you i'd be honored to do that with you um that's gonna be hard as fuck i hope0.91
01:02:11.340you know but no problem no problem we'll work out together it'll be great i'm not scared of holding0.95
01:02:15.060my breath underwater yes i am i have two fears in life that's one of them yeah uh he's a rock
01:02:19.620when he swims dark water i like kill me sure kill me now but we'll do it um i brought i i don't know
01:49:10.360And I wanted to be his manager. Like I had two chances. I was on top of the world, but he was like from the streets. He didn't really trust anybody. So I'm like driving to Memphis every week to like sit in the studio and sit in the hood with him, show him like, I'm not scared of this life. Like I'm passionate about you.
01:49:28.760And I remember there was one time I went to Memphis
01:50:28.520It made me sicker because what would happen when I would wake up the next day sick, I wouldn't be able to eat for like, you know, a day and then I'd be starving and then it would start the whole pattern over again of binging because I was starving.
01:50:42.000It was like swinging, like those insulin levels, spiking, then dipping, then spiking.
01:50:46.860And it would just be those cravings and it was just a vicious cycle.
01:50:50.040And that's how I became over 300 pounds.
01:50:51.800And this is why the tumor, like the imbalance in the body, if we're eating all this food that's not even real, like we're talking about chemicals on top of chemicals going into the body in massive amounts.
01:51:03.280Yeah, there's going to be an imbalance.
01:51:04.920If you smoke cigarettes, you're going to get lung cancer.
01:51:09.720I mean, it's the same thing with the food.
01:51:12.200You feel, when you see people smoking cigarettes, like let's call them like acquaintances.
02:08:11.440If we were to take it back 30 years ago and ask any of our parents, brothers, uncles, could hip-hop beat rock music, pop music, and country music as a grossing genre?