Maurice Clarett, Cory Gregory, and John Fosco ｜ This Past Weekend #140
Episode Stats
Length
2 hours and 20 minutes
Words per Minute
220.78209
Hate Speech Sentences
128
Summary
Maurice Claret is a former NFL running back who played for the Ohio State Buckeyes and won a National Championship in 2004. He is now a stand-up comedian who has been in the business for 14 years. In this episode, Claret talks about his early life growing up in the streets of Los Angeles, his college career at Ohio State, and how he went from a small town kid to one of the greatest athletes of all time.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Today's episode is brought to you by Gray Block Pizza, and that's a great place to get a pizza pie.
00:00:05.880
He's a college football superhero and an embodiment of perseverance.
00:00:11.860
He's one-third of the Business and Biceps podcast squad, and they will be joining us later.
00:00:41.540
Yeah, actually, I guess maybe about 2002 or 2003.
00:00:44.120
And when were you here? You lived in Los Angeles.
00:00:50.560
Was that a fun time in your life, or what was that like, being out here?
00:00:55.100
So just for my listeners, so if we could, could you kind of, if you could, I know this might be
00:01:01.620
Maurice Claret, could you sum up, like, kind of, like, football and some of the Ohio State
00:01:08.780
stuff, maybe in, like, you know, about two or three minutes, or whatever you think you can?
00:01:12.760
Yeah, for people who may not be familiar, well, you know, I came out just as a highly touted
00:01:19.780
Went to Ohio State, and the first time in history started as a running back for Ohio State.
00:01:26.220
Went out and won a national championship within my first year.
00:01:31.220
A huge amount of success from a personal level and from a, you know, obviously a career level.
00:01:36.300
And in the process of doing that, I always put it in context.
00:01:39.420
I got to remember that LeBron is about a year younger than me.
00:01:43.940
So LeBron grew up maybe 40 minutes away from me, and this is at the height of LeBron basically
00:01:49.800
going to become LeBron, you know, in high school when he's selling out college stadiums.
00:01:53.840
And at this time, you have, you know, 50 Cent's a new rapper.
00:02:00.000
And I can just remember after having so much success in watching LeBron have his success,
00:02:04.980
I can remember just me sort of losing focus as a college kid.
00:02:09.980
So you kind of said, you kind of followed that, like, his path, even though it wasn't your path,
00:02:14.540
You know, and I'm speaking, hindsight is 20-20, right?
00:02:17.420
So I can remember after being done with the season, and, you know, as an 18-year-old kid,
00:02:23.240
Fast forward 13 months later, you won everything in college.
00:02:26.700
All of the adults around, I don't blame this on them because everybody's enjoying the moment.
00:02:31.720
When you're famous or popular or notarized, nobody tells you no.
00:02:39.120
And I can just remember, I can remember when 50 Cent had the In the Club song and it came
00:02:47.680
And I can just remember, you know, LeBron asking, oh, let's go up to Cleveland State
00:02:52.360
And I remember Nike, Reebok, Adidas, all these guys were chasing him.
00:02:55.880
And I can just remember just enjoying that a bit too much.
00:03:00.460
And the reality of it is that I ended up getting suspended from having too many illegal benefits.
00:03:08.760
And what ended up happening was, and I always say it, that was probably the most impactful
00:03:12.460
time from an individual standpoint because that was the first time I actually felt like depression.
00:03:17.980
You know, never really went through anything from a mental standpoint.
00:03:21.280
Never felt anything adverse from a personal level outside of sports.
00:03:28.080
You know, in sports, if you have a hard time, you can, you know, watch film, you can lift
00:03:34.020
You can, you know, as a comedian, you can learn how to tell better jokes.
00:03:36.680
But from a personal standpoint, I just didn't know how to process that.
00:03:41.620
And that's an age when like the voice inside of your head starts to become like a real
00:03:46.260
I feel like at that point, you can hear it more, you know?
00:03:49.400
And so, you know, uh, obviously I didn't realize that prior to that, uh, from having
00:03:54.160
so much success, there was so much sex, drinking, drugging, but it was done in a celebratory standpoint
00:03:59.920
from a celebratory standpoint, like, you know, I'm celebrating a game or hanging out with
00:04:04.300
the fellas and it switched from, uh, having celebrations to me masking what I really felt
00:04:12.860
I have no like fucking clue as to what's going on in my life.
00:04:16.020
And so that's kind of like where, where, where, where life like kind of really met me
00:04:19.660
And that's like a, like a gray space, you know, nobody can kind of navigate out of this
00:04:28.720
And that's kind of like what really had happened with me.
00:04:31.840
I mean, at that point, like you couldn't trust the media very much.
00:04:35.060
It was like, I'm sure you were probably not scared, but just directionless maybe.
00:04:40.760
So just to put context to it, uh, after I got kicked out of school, uh, there was a
00:04:45.420
two year waiting period before I was allowed to go to the NFL.
00:04:47.900
And at that time, uh, I really thought that the NFL would let me enter the draft because
00:04:51.700
you know, I was big enough, strong enough and everything else.
00:04:54.100
Uh, but when they didn't allow me to enter the draft, I was just kind of like sitting two
00:04:59.540
So I ended up going to Vegas to, uh, watch, uh, it was, uh, it was a Roy Jones and Antonio
00:05:04.640
I go out there and, uh, when I watch him in house of blues and Jim Brown was out there, Jim Brown,
00:05:10.120
He says, yo, you know, I remember I helped you out with your, um, uh, your case at Ohio
00:05:14.900
Can you please like, you know, get away from that environment?
00:05:17.540
You just don't look like the same individual that I seen, you know, prior to that.
00:05:21.680
And so that was the original reason for me coming out to LA.
00:05:25.720
So you took that to heart when Jim Brown said that?
00:05:27.580
Because, you know, he had seen me as the, uh, the 19 year old kid who still was wanting
00:05:34.220
And when he seen me at the Antonio Tarver fight, that was probably seven months later,
00:05:38.020
eight months later, different you, different me, you know, I had partied all night, you
00:05:42.240
know, we up to four or five in the morning, you know, you know, you know, you know, that
00:05:47.120
I started one time I, I used to get, go buy makeup, dude.
00:05:50.080
I'd be so, I never, I never wore makeup in my life, dude.
00:05:52.840
I'd be in, I'd be in a 24 hour CVS at like 5am trying to get yourself together, asking
00:05:59.900
I'm just trying to look okay for a meeting in the morning.
00:06:05.720
And so he saw you and he said, uh, he, he kind of just, you know, commented and then
00:06:12.240
I commented and I moved out here with the whole motivation to come out here and to gather
00:06:17.240
And, uh, when I got out here, what I didn't realize is that, you know, he had, he was in
00:06:23.340
And there was a period of time when I was out here by myself waiting for him to come
00:06:28.460
And so when I got out here, I was like, all right, you know, I'm cool.
00:06:31.500
Uh, I kind of got away from Ohio too, you know, uh, like during the process of me getting
00:06:35.580
away, you know, I got back into the streets, I'm selling dope, I'm selling weed, I'm hustling.
00:06:39.920
So I was full fledged into the streets and I'm full fledged away from everything sports
00:06:49.120
I come out here, uh, because throughout that process also, uh, and I was talking to
00:06:53.900
John this morning, I got almost robbed three times.
00:06:56.420
And the last time that I almost get robbed, my mother was in the house, you know, some
00:06:59.620
guys on our bushes, uh, ended up coming outside, you know, we was in the suburbs at the time.
00:07:04.120
So these guys ran off, you know, but that time I was like, man, I got to get the fuck
00:07:07.200
out of here, you know, too close to home, too close to home.
00:07:11.080
Like you think you went back into drugs and into like, or into selling that type of environment
00:07:15.020
because there's still a level of, you probably got a, uh, a lot of street cred.
00:07:21.440
Well, I think, like, was it just for the hustle?
00:07:24.380
Or do you think there was, because there's a, you know, there's a level you can always have
00:07:28.880
a claim at in the streets, I feel like that you, that's different than, you know, in the,
00:07:34.040
in the world, like in society, like in the streets, if your cloud is a certain level,
00:07:41.080
Well, when I look back on it, um, there was a few things that put me in the streets.
00:07:46.020
One, my brother had needed money because he had just got arrested, right?
00:07:50.720
The second thing that put me back into the streets is just familiar, familiarity.
00:07:55.940
Just to feel your familiarity of how do I take care of myself?
00:07:59.080
And I think there's some sort of glorification that when you come from the hood, um, the
00:08:04.680
machoism of selling drugs and the coolness is attractive.
00:08:08.300
So it's something still almost as cool as athletics in a way.
00:08:11.280
And you still, you're still allowed to be a somebody, right?
00:08:15.380
And my access to me being able to get drugs from people, uh, the drugs that I was selling,
00:08:21.060
they, they, these people, it was easy to get to these people.
00:08:25.440
And I got to say, and also just from being, just being a bit more realer, uh, I was just
00:08:33.380
So there was nothing like, you know, let me go ahead and get an education and, you know,
00:08:37.920
Let me go ahead and live my life in some academic format.
00:08:42.220
You just couldn't even pay attention in school.
00:08:45.440
Like when, when you look back on it, uh, when you grew up in an environment, you know,
00:08:49.140
like, um, when you grew up in an environment, the only thing that you see as being successful
00:08:53.360
or what you deem successful is guys either selling dope or the cool guys or the athletes.
00:08:57.720
That's the only thing that you want to gravitate to as a kid.
00:08:59.720
Especially like probably growing up black in America at your age.
00:09:03.240
I mean, I remember the only successful black men I even knew growing up, uh, were the guys
00:09:12.260
When I really think about it as a child, like even, or the guy on, uh, in the heat of the
00:09:18.400
But see, when I think back, like that's who I, it's like, there was only a really, yeah.
00:09:23.640
Like I remember, and I've talked about this before.
00:09:25.380
If I even remember watching commercials for like Disneyland or something like that, it was always white
00:09:30.920
So I can only imagine what the vision probably looked like being a young black child, you
00:09:35.040
So see, you just, you just put that into context.
00:09:36.960
And so you gotta, you gotta put everything in context.
00:09:39.660
You're more, more about being cool is important to you rather than doing the right thing and
00:09:49.720
And so the selling of the drugs makes me, makes me cool to the women.
00:09:53.500
The selling of the drugs gets me money in my pocket to do foolish shit, to buy champagne, to buy
00:09:58.460
liquor, but you don't realize the habits that you're forming from this are detrimental
00:10:03.540
So at that point, uh, I can remember I'm out in Vegas at that time in Vegas and Jim Brown's
00:10:11.920
I can remember even, I remember at that time too, James Prince was out there.
00:10:16.060
I remember James Prince was like, yo, you tripping, you know what I mean?
00:10:18.740
Cause he had seen me as a regular football player.
00:10:20.560
And then to see me in that condition, I can remember him saying like, yo, you tripping,
00:10:26.460
So I came out here and in the process of Jim Brown, not being around, I went down to
00:10:32.160
When I go down to sunset, when I'm going into Hollywood, when I'm partying all day, uh,
00:10:36.280
you know, partied on a Monday, never heard of fucking party on a Monday, party on a Tuesday,
00:10:40.240
party on a Wednesday, you know, party on a Thursday.
00:10:42.820
Hey, come get this brunch, you know, but it's Hollywood's crazy, man.
00:10:49.380
There's a group of people that it just never ends.
00:10:57.160
I don't care how progressive you think Ohio is.
00:11:00.060
If you're from Ohio, it's still slow in comparison to these larger cities and how they do stuff.
00:11:04.800
So in Ohio, if you're a fucking drunk out of your mind and high to your mind at fucking
00:11:09.720
two in the afternoon, somebody would say you're crazy in LA, they walk past you like,
00:11:16.560
And so I got caught into that crowd and it was just a good time.
00:11:19.620
But also, you know, how you can be very popular.
00:11:24.820
So they don't know that your accountability for being a professional, there's no accountability.
00:11:33.700
There's no, you can't see any of the behind the scenes of anyone here, really.
00:11:37.760
Like in a smaller city, you can see you might run into Maurice's cousin or Maurice's aunt
00:11:42.780
or a friend of Maurice's who's like, he's not doing well.
00:11:45.480
Or here, everybody will lie to prop everybody up.
00:11:48.440
And nobody even knows what anybody's really doing anyway.
00:11:52.020
And so from there, you know, obviously I partied and Jim Brown reached out to me a couple of
00:11:58.720
And just from the discipline he tried to implement on me, I was resistant for him.
00:12:09.700
I could see him having like traditional Mombasa warriors.
00:12:17.360
He's serious and just, he has a great spirit and a great soul.
00:12:20.680
But if I remember correctly, just a bait, like this very basic house.
00:12:28.300
Like if you go up there, you can just see the whole city.
00:12:31.860
And he always hosts like, he probably still does it to some degree.
00:12:34.980
He used to host like meetings at his house every Monday and Tuesday and bring different
00:12:38.400
dudes from different gangs all over LA to his house and, you know, bring in just people
00:12:43.400
And it was just about basically basic fellowship on life.
00:12:47.360
So he had the American program and this was helping guys transition from prison, giving
00:12:51.400
them job skills, giving them a different support once they were released back into society.
00:12:55.660
So he had felt that since he's dealing with people who are gangsters, that they would
00:12:59.840
take me in like a little brother and provide some structure for me to basically get better.
00:13:08.000
Like, you know, you can, in my mind, I was a celebrity.
00:13:11.160
In my mind, I'm like, fuck, I'm somebody from Ohio.
00:13:13.620
I'm not about to come out here and listen to guys and have structure and discipline and
00:13:19.140
It's hard to hear when you're a celebrity, isn't it?
00:13:24.880
When you think you're a celebrity, when your ego really starts to puff up, it's hard to,
00:13:29.080
you can listen to people, you can look at people, but it's hard to really hear
00:13:33.040
It's, there's something that's, it's, that's different.
00:13:35.320
I mean, I would call it, there's no discernment.
00:13:40.480
You, you get to a space with how you've always wanted to live your life.
00:13:49.500
And so to a kid that is impressionable, you know, if, if I've made it, you know, like who
00:13:55.380
doesn't like, let's like, you know, I have a woman, we've been together 14 years.
00:13:59.160
But in that space, I want to have sex with the most beautiful women.
00:14:07.980
So anything that you get tigers, everybody gets tigers.
00:14:15.000
You, you, you get to a, uh, you're living some sort of pseudo moment in your head.
00:14:21.400
And so now you're, you're, you're, you're coming to me as an advisor with a great advice
00:14:24.800
and I'm like, fuck, like it makes sense, but this isn't helping me to do all this shit
00:14:30.880
Like this isn't helping me, you know, fuck all these girls.
00:14:34.620
So, and fame is like fame or notoriety is fucking intoxicating.
00:14:38.840
It's intoxicating, especially when you don't have a lot of feelings already inside of yourself
00:14:42.920
that kind of, um, that you can notice that sort of thing.
00:14:46.180
Like you don't have like a real framework or a groundwork that builds you up from the
00:14:52.560
Um, and I'm not saying that you don't, I'm, you know, I'm just saying even from my own
00:14:55.560
life, it's like, I know that there's things it's like, man, when things come in, that
00:15:00.560
Um, but you gotta ask yourself, when, when did you figure out the discovery process of
00:15:15.520
I was sitting down today with John having coffee.
00:15:17.900
I said, man, like I'm having fun sitting on a, uh, on a, on a, on a,
00:15:24.260
I can appreciate just cars going by, you know what I'm saying?
00:15:31.720
I mean, I got it, you know, I'm a sober guy now.
00:15:33.540
So I got in a program about two and a half years ago and that's the first time that I
00:15:38.200
That's the first time I could almost really even hear anybody like before that life was
00:15:44.200
And there were great moments and it was, I was, I was involved and invested, but I just
00:15:48.540
couldn't, I don't know the things hadn't lined up.
00:15:51.440
It was still too much of a Rubik's cube, you know, for me.
00:16:01.440
So at that time I disconnected from him and all things responsible ended up coming and,
00:16:06.200
uh, and met another gentleman, real, still a good friend today to my, still a good friend
00:16:11.040
Uh, and his name was high, you know, he's, he's, he was obviously in the 30 for 30.
00:16:15.800
So, and, and how I met high and at that time high, uh, was under a, a federal, federal
00:16:21.660
case, you know, federal racketeering case and, and, and that's highly noted, uh, and all
00:16:26.720
And so what happened was we ended up going to a party at his house and, uh, he lived out
00:16:30.900
And as we went to the party at the house, uh, I ended up bumping into him to make a long
00:16:35.300
You know, we was just, uh, talking shit to each other.
00:16:40.740
Uh, we ended up partying some more at night and then he was just like, yo, like you're
00:16:50.680
And I don't really understand like even how it happened even when I look back now, but
00:16:54.580
it was like one of the best, it was one of the best and worst things that happened to
00:16:57.860
Uh, the best because I got a friend and a brother for life.
00:17:02.700
Uh, there was also, um, like a cool deal of just me getting exposed to other people who are
00:17:14.320
So they, they own a shit ton of real estate, you know, probably a couple of billion dollars
00:17:18.560
And I can just remember thinking to myself, I'm like, how the fuck are these people so
00:17:22.260
You know, as naive as it sounds at 20, 19, 20 years old, I never seen somebody who had
00:17:30.500
I couldn't even conceive of people being like that massively successful.
00:17:34.820
And so, um, what ended up happening was that he was under a, uh, a racketeering case, you
00:17:40.920
know, uh, at that time, and he was getting ready to go to trial, like maybe that next
00:17:45.160
And so every day he would get up at eight in the morning and he would have his curfew at
00:17:49.420
11, but he thought he was going to prison for a long time.
00:17:52.360
So it was all about living life to the fullest.
00:17:56.160
And I was just, I happened to be a part of the boat.
00:17:58.600
So I'm, uh, out here trying to semi train for football, nothing really serious.
00:18:04.040
And I'm also around him every day because this is the only person I know.
00:18:08.140
So we're talking about a guy who has three or four fucking Bentley's, a fucking house
00:18:12.080
in Beverly Hills, a house in fucking, uh, by the beach.
00:18:15.560
And just seeing that as a young man, it can't really, I could imagine probably in your scenario,
00:18:20.600
I don't even, I don't know if it could help that much seeing all that, you know, but,
00:18:25.740
And I got to say this, one of the worst things that can happen is that you get into a vehicle
00:18:32.360
or you get around people who are super successful and you lose sight that this is their success.
00:18:40.040
And so the hunger for me to want to become something had faded because I thought I made
00:18:45.940
And 19, 20 years old, you're not processing like, this is their shit.
00:18:50.440
But you have a sex with beautiful women, you know, cause there's a lot of beautiful,
00:19:00.780
I got a 2004, five Mercedes 604 in my garage is 2004.
00:19:09.280
You know, you got money in your pocket, you're partying.
00:19:25.460
You, you have, you have influences, but, but their life isn't your life and you're starting
00:19:30.040
to believe that it is, or of course at that age, who wouldn't?
00:19:32.680
I'm starting, I'm starting to, but it's easier to live the lie.
00:19:35.180
And you end up, so, and I remember you ended up back in the NFL combine.
00:19:40.280
Went back to the NFL, went to the combine, failed horribly.
00:19:45.120
And as I come back to LA, I'm thinking like, I'm not going to get drafted anymore.
00:19:47.980
And after I ended up getting drafted, uh, in the third round, I went to, uh, Denver and
00:19:56.460
I was literally going to the clubs and we'll stay out till maybe three or four in the morning
00:20:02.660
So I'm coming to practice in the morning, like shit, you know what I'm saying?
00:20:06.800
And I always talk about Denver because I can't, I can't really shit on Denver.
00:20:11.720
So throughout the process, they tried to sit me down with a sports psychologist and they said,
00:20:15.160
Hey, you know, can you please slow down, you know, get with the sports psychologist and
00:20:18.520
allow her to assist you because they kept on saying, you've experienced a lot of trauma
00:20:24.400
So at my mind, I'm like, okay, I'm not about to sit here and talk to this lady.
00:20:30.380
And this is like an old white lady trying to talk to me about.
00:20:34.320
You know, not that she has some information, but just pure ignorance.
00:20:39.160
We're getting ready to play the, um, Indianapolis Colts.
00:20:43.280
And they come to me again and they say, Hey, can you sit down and, uh, work with the sports
00:20:47.660
psychologist, but also get on a practice squad.
00:20:49.980
Like just sit yourself down, like allow us to develop.
00:20:53.380
In my mind, I processed that as I'm not good enough and you want to sit me out.
00:21:05.020
I ended up getting on a plane, coming back to LA.
00:21:07.320
And when I got here, you know, the depression went from like, you know, a two to a negative 40.
00:21:16.960
The way that depression and that kind of stuff, and all of it can be building in your
00:21:20.920
base and you don't even realize a hundred percent, 100%.
00:21:24.280
And when I get here, this one, I knew I was real fucked up.
00:21:26.980
Like sometimes, like, you know, you have moments of clarity where you can identify how you really
00:21:31.220
I went to a party off a sunset and I can remember like it was yesterday.
00:21:36.060
And as I'm standing there, the whole party's going on.
00:21:52.660
So anybody ever been fucked up off of drugs know what I'm talking about.
00:21:55.380
So the next thing, you know, I get, um, I get in the party, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm fucking
00:21:59.020
around and, uh, I was like, man, I gotta get the fuck out of here.
00:22:05.640
Uh, I went to, uh, at that time I was banking with fucking whoever the next day withdrew my
00:22:10.020
Cause they didn't have the same bank in Ohio, caught a one way ticket to Ohio and went
00:22:14.980
So I connected with my coach when I came back home.
00:22:17.480
And, uh, when I connected with him, the whole thing was like, Hey, you know, I need to get my
00:22:22.760
Like, I'm just like totally disconnected from, uh, fucking reality.
00:22:29.000
Uh, when I got back here, uh, the coach had gave me a bunch of instructions, like, you
00:22:36.560
Uh, no, but he always talk, he always talks about coach Dressel, always talks about takeaways
00:22:41.540
And, uh, he said, you know, I need you to go back to school, but then I also need you to
00:22:45.520
The first thing was like fucking shit ton hard because I couldn't get back to school because
00:22:50.920
So I was rejecting that in the back of my head.
00:22:53.680
The second one, I said, okay, I'll start to get in shape.
00:22:55.880
So as I started to get in shape and wake up and go to the gym that he referred me to, like
00:22:59.880
I started to feel better and look better the whole night.
00:23:02.140
But what happened was I had a ton of free time on my hands.
00:23:05.140
So I'm 21 at this time, ton of free time on my hands, no money, can't pay for rent, really
00:23:19.360
And so I get back in the streets and as I'm getting back into the streets, the drugs are
00:23:23.760
not as accessible as they were before because the guy who I was messing with, he ends up
00:23:34.940
So LA habits are spend money like it's fucking going out of style.
00:23:37.660
You were just with a guy who spends thousands every day.
00:23:54.700
The next thing you know, money's starting to slow up.
00:24:06.520
You know, I could have came back to LA, humbled myself, really talked to my guy and said,
00:24:11.500
But my pride wouldn't allow me just to be where I was at.
00:24:15.240
So next thing you know, I end up catching a robbery case in Columbus.
00:24:19.460
And so I'm kicked out of college, kicked out of the NFL.
00:24:33.020
So the bad, like, so I feel bad, like, what is this?
00:24:44.080
But so, no, but these are the, like, the irony of this is probably my first time saying this
00:24:50.000
So the people who I was supposed to go and rob, they weren't there.
00:24:57.960
You're supposed to hit the A-gap and you hit the B-gap.
00:25:04.160
So if the people listen, I'm sorry, you know, this is Theo laughing and not me.
00:25:10.840
I'm laughing because I can laugh now at the pain.
00:25:13.340
I can see, you know, it replaces it when you can laugh at it later.
00:25:20.100
I was, I was, uh, I was out of my fucking mind, out of my mind.
00:25:23.880
And so, uh, what ended up, I ended up getting caught for that.
00:25:26.540
And I was out on bond, but January, 2006 to August, when I got arrested, I was just out
00:25:33.200
of my fucking mind and, you know, I'm committing more crimes because I have no money.
00:25:40.060
And I'm like, you know, you're going to the penitentiary and it's like the perfect storm.
00:25:44.140
You ever seen that movie, the perfect storm with the Andrea Gale?
00:25:47.060
And, uh, it's like the ship and everything, the ship, it's like, it starts off at as a
00:25:51.580
And the next thing, you know, it's just trying to catch shrimp and it's in the middle of like
00:25:58.860
It just seemed like, I can't even imagine that at 21, at 21.
00:26:02.320
So just 21, imagine having everything at the height of your life.
00:26:08.360
After you lose everything, every decision that you make is fucking retarded.
00:26:12.640
When you fucking think about it, excuse my language, but it's stupid.
00:26:20.040
Especially people that, you know, that if you don't have certain guidance or you, or you're
00:26:23.900
not really connected to the, whatever guidance you have, you know?
00:26:29.900
I think that that was, uh, that would accurately describe me.
00:26:33.380
And, and from there, nine months later, I ended up going to, um, uh, to get caught.
00:26:40.640
I tried to tell it to ESPN, but they didn't include it.
00:26:42.820
And as I come down to Columbus, I get off on the wrong exit.
00:26:46.640
As I get off on the exit, I come to the, um, uh, uh, the stoplight and I make a U-turn in
00:26:57.920
I have an AK-47 on, on the passenger side, right?
00:27:02.160
And as he comes up to me, I started thinking about this episode from cops, right?
00:27:09.220
So I'm thinking to myself, when he walks up, I'm going to pull off.
00:27:15.040
So he walks up in the car and literally I could see when he looked on the passenger side,
00:27:24.300
He's running back to his car and I'm coming over this, uh, on this bridge on this, uh,
00:27:38.900
And so, uh, now, now the next thing you know, we're running down a freeway and, uh, we get
00:27:45.240
And as I get further down the road, uh, you know, I'm from, I'm not from Louisiana.
00:27:53.800
And so I'm thinking to myself, like, you know, brothers don't do no woods, right?
00:28:01.740
Even on cops, even on cops, that's where cops ends every time it's in the woods.
00:28:09.940
The next thing you know, they had the, uh, the fucking spike strips.
00:28:14.840
If I'm a cop, a real cop, dude, get out there and shoot somebody.
00:28:21.360
That's like when they hire a dog to do the cop's job.
00:28:25.640
Well, when they, when they got me, they got me.
00:28:29.500
So it's like when they throw them, hopefully you'll never be in a situation you got to run.
00:28:33.300
Those fucking strips are like probably 40 yards long, man.
00:28:39.960
They throw them out there and you can't even swerve to get around them.
00:28:44.300
And the next thing you know, I ended up, um, getting pulled over, you know, and, and.
00:28:52.660
They, they roughed me up, threw me in the back of the car.
00:28:58.000
And, uh, the next thing, you know, uh, I call this like one of the, uh, I call it my divine
00:29:04.540
Because I believe personally had that not happened, I really believe in, and I know people talk
00:29:10.700
I can just see myself either going to prison for life or being dead.
00:29:16.400
When you think about the scale of anything, what's next after, you know, running from police
00:29:21.620
and having guns, it's like, there's not much else after that, bro.
00:29:24.860
You just keep, you keep on pushing the proverbial, uh, bar.
00:29:28.340
And two, you just fucking believe that shit doesn't stink anymore.
00:29:31.100
And the next thing you know, you, you put yourself in a, in a horrible situation.
00:29:36.380
You think when that happened a little bit, I get, I guarantee if you're going to talk
00:29:40.100
to people on treatment, talk to people who got locked up, even though you don't want
00:29:44.720
to admit it because it sounds crazy, you're glad, you're glad that you're in a circumstance
00:29:54.600
I can't get in my way anymore because God, I can't get in my way.
00:30:01.760
And another thing that happened to me, I went to court that next week, cause I was
00:30:06.500
I went to court like that next Monday or some shit.
00:30:08.360
The judge had mandated that I get it, that I get a mental health assessment.
00:30:11.620
So I've been pushing away all this mental health assistance in college and the pros
00:30:17.480
And I was suffering from anxiety and depression.
00:30:22.100
My first seven months of my incarceration, literally in a room, probably about the third
00:30:27.420
of the size, a nine by four cell, you're locked down 23 hours out of the day.
00:30:32.420
Three pairs of drawers, three socks, three t-shirts, same toilet that you're pissing shit
00:30:37.260
It's the same shit that you drink water out of.
00:30:42.780
And, uh, in that process, I call it like, you know, like, um,
00:30:45.820
probably the most introspective awakening process of my life.
00:30:48.940
You know, it was almost like a childhood or like an adolescence in a weird way because
00:30:54.780
You can't really, you're safe in a way you can't really harm yourself.
00:30:59.960
You know, you get a chance for your brain to just be patient for a minute.
00:31:05.200
You empty yourself because when you get caught, uh, and this is a real experience and I've
00:31:12.280
You start to think about everything you've done wrong.
00:31:14.840
And you start to like cleanse your mind of, of thoughts, of things to put you in here.
00:31:23.280
And, uh, what ended up happening was like the greatest fucking thing.
00:31:26.940
Um, all of that isolation of God, I will promote this book to the day I die.
00:31:32.800
A guy dropped off a book, a small 70 page read called as a man thinker by James Allen,
00:31:37.300
the most impactful book I've ever read in my life.
00:31:43.560
And, um, I was asking myself, like, how did you get here, Reese?
00:31:47.180
And after reading the book fucking 70 times in that situation, the book kept on showing
00:31:52.200
me that thoughts were things until thought is linked with purpose.
00:31:55.720
Nothing intelligence should ever happen until thought is linked with purpose.
00:31:59.720
I kept on thinking to myself like, what the fuck does that mean at first?
00:32:02.380
What a man thinks about, plants in his brain, plants in his mind, he shall manifest.
00:32:06.700
Conceive, believe, and achieve, and speak up over, it shall come.
00:32:13.260
But when we grow up, we think like life is just a series of events, like random shit happens
00:32:19.760
This game, supreme control over me creating my life.
00:32:27.660
I talked as a gangster, but gangster shit has consequences within the American system.
00:32:31.720
You ended up as a gangster, running from the police.
00:32:47.620
There's no, like I got to get somewhere and go somewhere.
00:32:56.460
There's a gentleman by the name of Mr. Kelly Conte, the warden of the prison.
00:33:01.720
Talked a bunch, but he said, Maurice, my father was a chief of Sierra Leone for 15 years.
00:33:06.640
He said in Africa, he said when guys would do something wrong, we would bring them closer
00:33:09.820
to the village, figure out what's going wrong, help them out, fix them back up, and then
00:33:19.320
So I'm like, all right, this is like, all right, cool.
00:33:23.080
Next thing you know, he said, I want to put you in a bunch of psychological, social, and
00:33:27.880
At this point, I never heard of his shit, but for those who don't know, it's therapy.
00:33:32.060
All he told me is like, you're going to therapy, but guys in prison don't want to call it therapy.
00:33:37.880
And so through the process of that, I start going to these fucking classes every day from
00:33:41.100
like eight in the morning till 12 in the afternoon.
00:33:43.180
And could you, how educated were you at this point?
00:33:45.100
And not judging your education or anything, but like at this point, how were you, like,
00:33:52.240
So I could read the words, but I probably couldn't comprehend.
00:33:55.800
So my talent allowed them to, or I allowed myself to basically be pushed through school
00:34:03.760
I had a 13 on my ACT and I cheated to get into college.
00:34:10.320
There was nothing to tell you, hey, look, there was no mirrors really for you.
00:34:15.880
As long as you can generate revenue on this football field, we'll find a way to get you
00:34:20.620
So, and then you never think it's going to win.
00:34:28.080
But then another thing happened after I was doing that.
00:34:31.380
I didn't realize that that same motivation that I had to be a great football player was
00:34:37.000
the same, like that was an energy that was inside of me, just wanted to do something
00:34:41.580
That's a great, I was going to ask you about this.
00:34:43.700
So I said, what do you do when you want to be good in football?
00:34:46.540
You go watch film from people you want to be like.
00:34:48.900
So I said, okay, I want to be a businessman because there were so many entrepreneurial
00:34:54.540
I always say crime in its inception is entrepreneurial.
00:35:00.680
People always look at a drug dealer like a bad guy.
00:35:02.280
I'm like, that's a bit, that man is a businessman.
00:35:20.940
And so I said, okay, let me formally teach myself about this.
00:35:24.200
So I started educating myself and reading and reading.
00:35:26.600
So I used to go to commissary and when people would send me money, $20, $30 here, I would
00:35:30.820
start to get legal pads and I would start to do book reports and just read from people,
00:35:35.080
read from people, read from people, read Entrepreneur Incorporated, Fast Company, Wall
00:35:43.040
Like, are you like, I mean, are you still thinking about football at this point?
00:35:48.100
Are you, are you, so at that time I was 22 and I had seven and a half years would have
00:35:54.720
So at that point I'm like, you know, I'll never play football again.
00:35:57.800
And so I was just anxious to learn something else that I can take care of myself with.
00:36:03.580
And so through reading, I was just like, yo, there's a fucking big world out here.
00:36:11.340
So, and if you ever hear me talk, I always talk about fucking reading, change my life.
00:36:16.440
It just opened my eyes up to what was possible, what you can do, how you can create your world,
00:36:20.640
how you can take that same work ethic and place it elsewhere.
00:36:26.200
So she's born and, and, uh, and you can't see her, you can see her during visitations.
00:36:30.200
So what would happen is that, uh, you know, every probably three months and I stopped them
00:36:34.480
from coming, uh, because it was easier to live the live prison as if they didn't exist.
00:36:39.700
So did you tell your wife about that or you told her that?
00:36:44.580
So if you came to see me, it will remind me of what I was missing.
00:36:49.120
So if I see you, I got to see like, fuck, this is a whole child.
00:36:55.860
I'm visiting my emotions that I cut off in prison.
00:37:04.140
Is that a common practice for people that are inmates sometimes or people that are incarcerated?
00:37:09.480
Some guys like a ton of visits because they like to live in the outside world.
00:37:16.700
I always say it is the most intense environment you can ever be in.
00:37:23.780
The guard women, the guards are women sometimes, you know what I'm saying?
00:37:26.960
Oh, that's gotta be, that's gotta even be worse.
00:37:32.980
Yeah, man, just, you know, it's fucking nuts, man.
00:37:35.660
Just imagine, like, six o'clock in the morning.
00:37:42.220
I wouldn't turn the lights out, dude, and it fucking pissed me off, bro.
00:37:47.240
If fucking Lester's out there, they call him lit up Lester, bro.
00:37:57.020
He'd walk in any room, and he wouldn't even in the room and just turn on the fucking lights and roll out.
00:38:03.920
If he had lights on, it made him feel comfortable.
00:38:06.160
So he would cut them on everywhere he went, man.
00:38:09.620
So, I mean, he's a nice kid, but he wasted a lot of money around America with all this wattage.
00:38:17.680
Well, prison is wasting a lot of money, and they keep the fucking lights on all day.
00:38:22.140
But could you imagine six in the morning, you have to be like, it's game day every day?
00:38:32.380
You know, we're not talking about sporadic events.
00:38:36.460
You're talking about, on a consistent basis, guys getting their ass kicked at six in the morning.
00:38:40.960
You know, we got into it at recreation last night.
00:38:46.320
You know, you're talking about motherfuckers getting, you know, fucking baby oil and hot water thrown in their face over fucking card games.
00:38:53.140
You're talking about motherfuckers just intense environment all day.
00:38:59.380
Well, the one thing you like about prison is the respect factor.
00:39:03.120
And so in society, if I disrespect you or you disrespect me, we can, like, walk away, you know, or hire a bunch of bullshit.
00:39:22.340
There's no stealing if you can't, like, defend yourself for taking what you want from people.
00:39:31.620
There are people in prison literally don't look at each other, right?
00:39:33.920
So I can remember, like, for four years, walking through prison, like, you don't look at people.
00:39:40.660
If we don't talk to each other, we don't have no business with each other.
00:39:51.080
There's a sense of discipline within the element or within the environment, right?
00:39:57.980
Yeah, just over, but over bullshit, over a washer.
00:40:03.340
So you have a washer, and this is a serious thing.
00:40:06.500
Like, if you allow somebody to skip you online to wash your clothes, it can be perceived wrong.
00:40:14.940
You have arguments over a basketball game, right?
00:40:17.240
And so this forces you to defend, like, your space.
00:40:20.380
And so prison, everybody's trying to—just imagine you're in a neighborhood, and all the sales are houses.
00:40:25.560
Everybody's trying to state claim as to who they are in a neighborhood.
00:40:30.080
And it's either you're with the guys, you're with the populace, you know what I'm saying, the majority, either with the Bloods, Crips, Mexican guys, you know, or guys who are within a white gang.
00:40:41.380
But you have all of that within one housing unit.
00:40:45.120
And so for everybody to coincide, there has to be an extreme amount of respect amongst each other.
00:40:54.720
You sound like a monopoly, but with knives, bro.
00:40:59.800
So I've learned quickly when I'm here, this ain't my program.
00:41:05.860
Like, you know, what I did in the streets and what the consequences were, like, yo, this is not you.
00:41:12.560
Like, and so I had to admit that to myself that I'm not ready to die here.
00:41:16.600
You know, so I'm not ready to fight over a fucking microwave.
00:41:21.440
I'm not ready to die over disrespect in prison.
00:41:24.300
Like, it's just not, this is not my environment.
00:41:26.420
And so you have guys, like, literally who are fucking nuts.
00:41:37.140
So my circumstances aren't like yours because the average person in prison who I was at,
00:41:43.120
So the way they look at what's going on, the way I look at what's going on is two different things.
00:41:47.020
So I said, Reese, your program is to get your ass in here, re-educate yourself, figure out
00:41:51.800
what you're going to do and get the fuck out of here.
00:41:54.220
And at this point, when you get out, who's still there that was there whenever?
00:42:00.000
Like, are any of the celebrities and the stars?
00:42:03.460
So I give it to Mike Tomlin, the coach for Pittsburgh Steelers.
00:42:08.360
He reached out and wrote me a letter, which is beautiful because I'm like, you know, you
00:42:11.600
guys are fucking, at that time, they had won the Super Bowl.
00:42:14.180
And for you to think about Maurice Claret in fucking prison, who've never, I didn't go
00:42:22.720
You know, but, you know, you start to look at it different because you start to look at
00:42:26.160
life as, you know, these people don't owe me anything.
00:42:30.560
They don't owe me the personal connection and you start to realize that your friendships
00:42:35.660
You know, as long as you're that guy entertaining or you have a certain status amongst peers,
00:42:42.320
But when you're not that guy anymore, like there was never a human connection or a human
00:42:48.260
And so I can't say it was the same in all cases, but you're not a factor.
00:42:59.060
And the only people I had in my corner, like outside of anybody, it was just my mother,
00:43:10.320
And so when I got out of prison, you know, fuck, I had 400 bucks.
00:43:18.140
Because would you, I mean, because you had had, I mean, fiscally, maybe who knows what
00:43:22.920
you had in like your, you know, but you were at, I mean, just, yeah, you were at this superficial
00:43:32.840
I mean, you were a superficial billionaire, not superficial.
00:43:36.440
Like not you personally, but the, you know, the, the environment inside.
00:43:40.060
In your psyche, it's like, you think you're a billionaire.
00:43:43.680
Let me tell you like this is, it was very fucking humbling, you know?
00:43:46.840
And, um, and what kept you like going at that point at those moments?
00:43:50.140
Like to, to know after from reading from people, so many success stories, there wasn't a shadow
00:43:56.340
Like, so if you talk to me long enough, I, even outside of this, you'll see, I got a
00:44:00.700
I just believe like anything I attach myself to or put my, put my focus on.
00:44:05.060
And I just really focus on, I feel like I can have success.
00:44:14.600
So even from football to whatever I do, I just feel like if I focus on something, I can
00:44:18.860
So I had read so many success stories and just the process of it.
00:44:25.520
These are things that I just know I can control.
00:44:27.900
And so I knew I would be successful in something.
00:44:30.680
And the thing I wanted to be successful in initially was senior care services.
00:44:34.600
And this happened from, I used to have eight ladies.
00:44:38.440
These are old ladies who said we identify with people who are incarcerated because as
00:44:50.360
A lot of senior citizens are really forgotten about.
00:44:52.360
A lot of men up in homes where they're not being cared for appropriately.
00:45:00.000
So they all said this, but they weren't from one place.
00:45:05.640
As I said, man, this would be a cool deal to learn it, to understand it, but to provide
00:45:13.400
But from seeing so much success or reading from so much success, I was like, I can actually
00:45:19.700
I just like, I'll put myself together at some point.
00:45:21.680
And so I ended up getting out of prison in 2010.
00:45:24.280
And I had an opportunity to play football for a minor league team in Omaha, Nebraska.
00:45:33.720
And so I went out to Omaha and I thought that Omaha was going to be like full of just
00:45:40.100
And it was some of the most down to earth American.
00:45:43.680
It's the most American place that you can fucking name.
00:45:46.860
And from small businesses to people who were fucking millionaires, billionaires, driving
00:45:52.940
pickup trucks, simple, everyday shit from people who were so successful.
00:45:57.540
But what Omaha also allowed me to do was to adjust slowly.
00:46:02.460
I was able to play football, go to the gym, come home, talk to my family and just do like
00:46:13.280
Like this is one of the greatest experiences in Omaha, aside from playing football.
00:46:16.960
When I was in prison, I had read so much from Warren Buffett, fucking shit, tons of information.
00:46:22.640
When I went to Omaha, I knew Warren Buffett was out there and things like that.
00:46:26.520
So our coach ended up being this guy by the name of Joe Moglia.
00:46:33.220
He ended up leaving as the active CEO of TD Ameritrade.
00:46:36.880
He ended up becoming the chairman of the board.
00:46:39.540
So out of all things he wanted to do, he wanted to get back into coaching football.
00:46:43.120
He ended up coming back to be the head coach of our team.
00:46:45.740
So every Wednesday he would tell guys like, hey, if you have anything that you want to
00:46:49.020
ask financially, come and meet me on Wednesdays.
00:46:57.220
I'm not about to keep on making this available.
00:46:58.700
The guys had no fucking clue of what he was offering.
00:47:01.000
Valuable information from a motherfucking titan.
00:47:04.520
So he said, Maurice, come to the golf course with me.
00:47:11.480
How the fuck did you go from prison to ending up here?
00:47:15.300
After I'm done, he said, I've never asked Warren for a favor in my life.
00:47:19.100
Let me see if I can call Warren Buffett and get him to meet you.
00:47:21.440
So I'm thinking to myself like, motherfucker, I'm 18 months from prison.
00:47:24.580
Like, this motherfucker ain't about to meet with my black ass.
00:47:36.080
So he's like, yeah, Warren Buffett ain't fucking about to meet with my black ass, right?
00:47:48.960
You know, because I remember his voice distinctly because I used to watch Charlie Rose in prison.
00:47:53.540
I used to watch this motherfucker interview everybody, right?
00:48:14.740
And he's like, yo, you got anything I'm doing on Saturday?
00:48:16.820
I'm like, yo, whatever going on Saturday is canceled.
00:48:30.600
And ironically, the person who had a meeting before him had canceled.
00:48:37.980
And I'm like, yeah, like, you want to hang out?
00:48:39.680
So we're sitting there one-on-one for five hours, right?
00:48:42.820
And so I'm asking to do everything I ever, like, fucking dreamed of.
00:48:49.660
Was he preaching at you or was he cool to talk to?
00:48:56.360
So it's easy for him to have a thoughtful, intellectual, personal conversation.
00:49:03.060
This dude is more fucking humble and down-to-earth than anybody I've ever fucking met, right?
00:49:11.720
This dude controls fucking a shit ton of our world.
00:49:14.640
Did you think about even asking him for, like, a million?
00:49:23.140
I'm telling you, this dude was just, like, he was, like, fucking, he was zoned in.
00:49:28.200
And so the next thing you know, we end up meeting and getting together.
00:49:31.560
And I ended the meeting and fucking was like, yo, I know you got better shit to do than talk to me, right?
00:49:38.560
And the next thing you know, I rolled out to, excuse me, I rolled out back home.
00:49:43.460
A few months after that, ESPN reached out to me.
00:49:46.420
And they said, hey, can we do a 30 for 30 on your life?
00:49:49.380
And after that, it took about eight months to shoot the show.
00:49:52.980
And I woke up one day after the show came out, and I had 1,100.
00:49:56.180
And I remember literally 1,100 emails from people just either talking and asking to come and speak.
00:50:02.060
I didn't never, I've never done public speaking prior to that.
00:50:04.980
And I ended up just going on the road and starting to tell my story and ask questions and answer questions.
00:50:10.520
And from there, I ended up getting into the transportation business because I got tired of, it literally felt as I was traveling.
00:50:17.420
And I'm pretty sure anybody who's traveled a lot, you can feel lonely.
00:50:20.100
As cool as it may look to the outside, you're in a hotel by yourself, you're a spectacle once you get on stage.
00:50:27.720
After you get off stage, you're taking a picture, you're talking hands, and next thing you know, you're thinking about what other city you're going to next.
00:50:33.340
And so I had done about 350 speaking engagements in three years, which is a fuck ton.
00:50:38.900
After a while, I feel like you're just repeating words.
00:50:40.620
And I was like, okay, let me get into another business because I don't want to depend on this my whole life.
00:50:44.960
I can't force somebody to book me for an engagement, right?
00:50:48.320
And so from there, I ended up getting into transportation.
00:50:50.760
And after transportation was doing what it did for a couple of years, I ended up going to an event in Ohio.
00:50:59.860
And through the process of doing the event, the event had ended.
00:51:02.400
And there was a person, a gentleman who had been teaching some young men who were about like 17 or 18 years old, some of the work that we had done in prison.
00:51:09.380
And I was like, yo, my man, where did you get this stuff from?
00:51:13.200
It was an exercise with the activating event, the mind activity, the body reaction, the consequence.
00:51:17.220
And this was stuff that I had helped to facilitate in prison.
00:51:21.100
It's one of the things they teach you in licensed clinical social work.
00:51:23.520
It's one of the things they teach in the first year.
00:51:27.880
And what ended up happening was that I just like enjoying what he was talking about.
00:51:32.960
And he was like, you know, I run a behavioral health agency.
00:51:34.900
And I said, what the fuck is a behavioral health agency?
00:51:37.280
He was like, I work with mental health and drug and alcohol.
00:51:39.760
And for me having so many issues with drugs and alcohol.
00:51:41.740
You're like, this is my, yeah, this is my home.
00:51:44.880
But even going through that work in prison, I felt that out of everything that was helping to rehabilitate guys, the actual work, the social work, right?
00:51:55.040
The therapeutic services were the things that guys would come back to the block and talk about and have intellectual discussions.
00:52:01.100
Or guys would become revealing about themselves in a therapeutic format.
00:52:04.400
And I thought to myself, like, more kids in the inner city need to basically be involved and connected with this.
00:52:11.740
So I went through, like, an eight-month process of policies and procedures.
00:52:17.580
And in the process of doing that, I ended up opening up our company called The Red Zone.
00:52:20.840
And at first, we went back to literally inner cities.
00:52:23.040
And I thought that there was so much emotionally.
00:52:25.760
Like, I was thinking about to my childhood, the amount of murders I had seen, the amount of domestic violence and robberies.
00:52:31.060
And just the amount of trauma that I had been experiencing that I never processed.
00:52:36.820
I was functioning from, like, a space of fear or where the drugs and alcohol masked, like, some of my childhood shit.
00:52:45.340
And did you, your father wasn't present when you were growing up?
00:52:48.500
You know, so I was born in 83 and my mother divorced in 84.
00:52:52.300
And so, like, my mother never down-talked him or made him out to be a bad person.
00:52:57.200
But just through their disconnect, like, there just wasn't any male involvement.
00:53:01.840
So, my mother worked as a second-year educational coordinator at a medical school.
00:53:07.900
So, as a result from that, the kids come home alone a lot.
00:53:11.320
So, now the neighborhood and the environment raises you.
00:53:14.800
And so, how I found, I mean, obviously, I've known about you, right?
00:53:17.940
And a lot of people, like, when I said Maurice Claret's going to come on the podcast, you know, I listen to his podcast, Business and Biceps, you and Corey and John.
00:53:28.340
It's like, you know, I recommend checking out their podcast because it's a fun, it's like, I don't know what it is.
00:53:36.980
I can't feel like, I can't tell if I feel like I'm at the gym or the office or the therapist.
00:53:43.120
That's what I can't tell, but that's what I like about it.
00:53:45.620
But I'm glad you feel that because that's the intention.
00:53:50.080
It's like there's moments where it's like, okay, this is uplifting and this is inspiring.
00:53:54.120
And then there's moments where it's like, it's just guys, like, joking around.
00:53:59.020
And then there's moments where it's like, you know, the other day you guys were talking about loyalty and stuff like that.
00:54:05.200
And even if I don't resonate with everything that's said on the podcast, and we're going to have Corey and John in in just a few minutes, even if I don't resonate with everything,
00:54:12.600
there's just, every now and then it makes me think of something.
00:54:16.100
Like, oh, loyalty makes me, just hearing about loyalty makes me think, oh, well, you know, let me think back into my life.
00:54:21.220
Loyalty, if I were to go back and make a list of who's been loyal to me in my life.
00:54:24.720
It's just, you know, it's fun to hear just things that you hear you're then inspired to think about.
00:54:29.660
But I think one of the biggest things, we talked about this last night at dinner, and the focal point even is just to bring, like, real things that you feel.
00:54:41.760
If you don't feel it as you're saying it, it's not real.
00:54:46.760
And when we talk about business, and you talk about growing business, from our business standpoint, we try to talk about things that are actually real and not like the cute pictures and videos and bullshit bitch music on Instagram that, like, misleads kids.
00:55:06.160
And so if you've given me your time, a fucking hour, just think about this, right?
00:55:09.440
So people are giving you an hour of their fucking day or 40 minutes or 30 minutes or however long the format is, right?
00:55:16.660
You kind of owe it to them if they believe in you and they're giving you an ear to be thoughtful and pure with your entertainment and to give a message that's real.
00:55:24.840
And so that way, like, at the core level, so I heard Denzel say this on Charlie Rose.
00:55:31.100
He said, from the specific comes the universal.
00:55:33.540
So if you can connect to yourself and get down to specific emotion, I'm pretty sure that may work in comedy, right?
00:55:43.100
That's how it connects to people because people are like, oh, I feel that.
00:55:48.080
And so the podcast is a format of things that, like, I've actually been through, things that we actually experience.
00:55:55.620
And having a level of entertainment that doesn't seem cheesy, phony, or, like, commercial.
00:56:05.860
And so, like, you have, you also have an element to where people who have come from humble beginnings.
00:56:17.280
You know, very, I come from the hood in fucking Youngstown.
00:56:22.080
I mean, that's one of the things that I really like about you guys, Cass, is that, yeah, it connects, like, it's the Midwest, you know?
00:56:29.640
You know, our producer, Nick, is from Wisconsin.
00:56:33.260
It's like, and he's one of the hardest workers I know.
00:56:35.300
It's like, you know, it's a voice that's not out there as much these days, I feel like, or that you can't find on the coast anyway.
00:56:43.240
And so it's, you know, that's what I really love listening about it.
00:56:45.740
But I've got a couple more questions for you, and then we're going to take a break for a few minutes and get Corey and John in here.
00:56:51.740
And we're going to do another hour with the guys.
00:56:56.560
We've got some listeners and questions as well.
00:56:59.100
Do you feel like you were always going to be – do you feel like football was supposed to be your thing?
00:57:13.540
Or do you feel like that you were always going to be good at something?
00:57:22.280
I don't think when I was young – I think football when I was young was a way to fit in and grab friends, right?
00:57:32.820
And I also looked at football as a vehicle to get out of my situation.
00:57:39.820
I love the element of competing but not football as much as that.
00:57:45.740
And the older I get and I started to realize the science of working hard and understanding what you're working towards and being clear at that, I have a confidence.
00:57:55.640
Not to sound arrogant, but I believe that I can be successful at whatever it is I choose to put my attention to.
00:58:01.820
And so I don't know if that answers the question, but I still feel like I'll be great at something because I know how to just like connect with my feelings.
00:58:12.160
And I know anything that I may be connected to will be connected to what's real and not even a commercial success.
00:58:18.160
Like, you know, I'll be successful just because I'll be doing shit that makes me happy.
00:58:22.600
Like, as corny and cliche as it may sound, but this, like, sitting down makes me happy.
00:58:28.140
Look, when I was watching 30 for 30, I mean, I was, I mean, I was teared up at one point, like, just seeing you, like, you know, you could just kind of tell, I don't know, just that you were just a really deep person emotionally, you know?
00:58:43.020
And that, and I'm that, I'm that same way, you know, and I noticed when I'm growing up, if I didn't have, like, somebody to tell me that it was okay to be that way, then it's like, I was always, didn't know what was going on with my emotions, you know?
00:58:57.100
And so then you have this whole life where you have these emotions, but you don't know if it's even okay to think about them or how to feel or.
00:59:03.320
But just imagine you pioneering a space for that to be cool.
00:59:07.340
So, so now if I look up to you, if I look up to Maurice, I look up to anybody, now this guy talking about it, now, like, this is a real thing.
00:59:15.180
Now this, it's cool to be indifferent about my emotions.
00:59:18.880
It's cool to be, not cool, but being sad is normal.
00:59:26.780
Like, and so even as you say that, it just, it just affirms and gives confirmation that that's the road I keep on needing to travel because there's more people who fucking putting your voice in the ear on a consistent basis who needs that.
00:59:39.720
And that helps them to heal or to be whole as they're moving forward.
00:59:48.800
Like, to a remarkable level of anybody that I've, you know, listened to or heard or, yeah, I don't know.
00:59:55.340
I just, I have this, like, you just have an uncanny ability to iterate comfortably to others, like, kind of how you feel and then also how it kind of fits into what you're doing, you know?
01:00:09.900
Because sometimes it's so hard to connect those two, you know?
01:00:13.400
It's so hard to connect those two and still stay confident in it and moving forward, you know?
01:00:23.640
I don't, I think it's a learned from experience, but I believe it's a blessing because it allows me to walk as a whole person everywhere I go.
01:00:36.120
I don't have to, like, I get to be me, you know?
01:00:41.040
Like, if I would have did this podcast 10 years ago, I would have said, man, I care about my jeans, what my shoes are going to look like.
01:00:55.220
He thought it was from maybe a farmer's market.
01:01:05.280
And I don't, this is, I honestly, this is the most dressed up I've got because honestly, I was so excited about you guys coming in.
01:01:12.680
I feel, yeah, I just feel, yeah, like I listen to you and I feel like you really embody a lot of what we want, you know, like what we try to do here.
01:01:21.000
You know, we got a lot, a lot of our listeners are young men that have struggled, you know, and that, you know, have struggled, you know, being raised by single parents, that sort of thing.
01:01:29.300
And, and yeah, I'm just, I'm glad that to be able to help turn some of our listeners on you guys' podcast, because I think that there's a, you know, you guys have a wealth of knowledge in a fun way and emotional knowledge to offer people, man.
01:01:41.820
No, I, I, even so they gave me, when they told me who you were before, I purposely did not look at you because I said, okay, I looked at something on IG and I said, okay, I don't want to form an opinion of somebody.
01:01:53.300
And then, but because you want to, like, you want to go and have like the natural energy of something.
01:01:57.960
And even through talking, you could tell if something is forced, you can tell the energy and you could tell if it isn't right.
01:02:02.860
But when I was on the plane yesterday, I was coming down, I don't know where the fuck we were at, but I said, man, everything feels right.
01:02:16.280
And, you know, we talked about this at dinner, like, I know why they feel right.
01:02:19.620
And I know how you can push the gas for things to get better than what they are, look better what they are.
01:02:25.380
And if anybody, like, has ever felt that feeling, that's like a beautiful feeling to have.
01:02:31.200
And to know you yourself, I'm not drinking, drugging, I'm not fucking being bad towards my woman.
01:02:41.360
I'm great to the guys and we have a good relationship.
01:02:46.760
And the stuff that we're talking about is stuff that you can, like, actually say, this is what I do.
01:02:50.920
And the preservation of that in a society right now where so much is driven off side of let me look cool and let me promote what's fake.
01:03:01.920
I think that even you, we owe it to people to provide platforms to be like, okay, like humanity still does exist.
01:03:13.480
You don't, you almost, you don't like to be the center of attention in a weird way.
01:03:18.920
Or you get, or the way it makes you feel doesn't land super well inside of you.
01:03:24.920
Like this, the center of attention is too much, it's too much responsibility, my man.
01:03:29.060
You know, and, and, and I would be the center of attention if it was simple.
01:03:39.940
You become a whore and you can get involved in things that financially make sense or look cool, but just may not be you.
01:03:53.700
If I really don't like you and I really don't believe what you value, I really don't want to be around you.
01:04:00.880
I just don't want to affiliate my being with your being.
01:04:06.640
But, but I think that, but, but that comes back to understanding why I love myself and I love myself from like I do right by my family.
01:04:14.260
Who do you, can you feel you, can you feel, is it easier to feel love now as an adult than it was when you were young?
01:04:20.680
But I think, I think it starts with self though, you know, cause now I love myself and I know who really loves me.
01:04:26.960
And, um, and, and I can, I can just tell like, is this a working relationship?
01:04:35.060
And, um, and, and it is, is beautiful to have, uh, somebody to love you for you.
01:04:46.820
Uh, and I think that, uh, like I can give you one thing about John.
01:04:50.200
So, uh, and this is John Fosco and he'll be in here in just a couple of minutes.
01:04:57.100
So we were getting ready to do a show that were, that was revolved around sports.
01:05:00.100
And then John goes and watches, um, he watches the 30 for 30.
01:05:05.940
And after he watches the 30 for 30, the sporting show that we were going to do was a little bit
01:05:10.200
more hardcore and language was foul and all this other shit.
01:05:13.200
And so after watching the show, he had come back to Corey and say, yo, I don't really think
01:05:17.800
that that's direction that serves him well to put him in that light based upon the amount
01:05:24.240
And so to have that, uh, amount of consideration.
01:05:30.300
I mean, Corey had been buddies fucking eight, nine, 10 years or however long we've known each
01:05:35.580
And so Corey already had like a level of like, you know, our connection, but for John to step
01:05:41.020
in and do that without even knowing me to recognize that in advance, to recognize the value.
01:05:46.400
And, um, it just, it just spoke to a lot about that.
01:05:49.540
So like, you kind of know who you're around or, you know, what, like what's up with the
01:05:54.680
So when you can do that and you can fucking sit and have a good meal and you can talk and
01:06:00.500
And when you get to the airport, you're laughing like little kids because you're happy that
01:06:03.760
it feels like a team is going somewhere to do something.
01:06:07.820
It's like, that's what you miss probably most about the sports.
01:06:14.440
Bro, there's nothing like you and a group of guys who have a common interest and you
01:06:20.020
all working towards something and shit's starting to go right and you're figuring shit out and
01:06:25.880
And you get, think about this, you're getting energized off of ideas.
01:06:30.080
That's not the, that's not the cool fucking Bentley and the cute music and all the bullshit
01:06:34.840
There's like, you're getting inspired from talking about an idea and like what this could
01:06:42.640
That's like, you know, that has nothing to do with nothing else other than creative thought.
01:06:47.920
It doesn't have to do with women and fucking fake titties and ass shots and all that stupid
01:06:52.920
Like, you know, there's a, there's a, there's like, just think about how you may get excited
01:07:13.240
I can feel when, when things are, when it's real, you know?
01:07:17.180
And then when you're done, you're like, this is work well done.
01:07:22.280
You're not, you're, you're putting something good out into the world.
01:07:26.620
And, uh, yeah, it's a, it is a really different and comfortable way to, to sleep.
01:07:31.360
Um, yeah, I remember when I would go into AA meetings, one of the best times I ever had
01:07:35.540
and still have are, I remember sitting down between two guys that I knew in meetings, from
01:07:40.880
And I sat there and they were both laughing, were joking around.
01:07:48.500
I was like, all I wanted my whole life really was just to sit around and joke with, with,
01:07:53.520
And I've been chasing these other things that have made me try to feel, feel whatever
01:07:56.820
this little feeling is right here, just to be in a little group and have fun, you know,
01:08:01.300
like I've been chasing this, you know, or, you know, you think about other stuff or do
01:08:05.320
Like you're saying, you go after like the shiny trinkets, you know, but you, but I was like,
01:08:09.960
man, it just, I don't know, just to have some sort of a little bit of a brotherhood.
01:08:13.920
I was about to ask, Pastor Brotherhood, what is it else that you think that you're getting
01:08:17.800
Um, it was nice to know that these people cared about me because we'd all agreed to
01:08:25.620
And so like they cared, you know, and I knew they cared about me.
01:08:29.820
And so that made me feel when I knew somebody else cared about me, it made me feel good.
01:08:36.220
Like, so, so, so did it, did it, um, and, and this is one thing I like about meetings,
01:08:42.040
It allows me to comfortably put my vulnerabilities in front of people.
01:08:48.840
I know I could talk to them and say anything to them, but I don't know.
01:08:51.960
There was just something about being flanked by two people that I knew were like, were
01:09:01.080
It felt like something that I'd never really had that I've been wanting my whole life.
01:09:04.900
So I guess the question, like, so when we see people are more people, you know, cause
01:09:09.660
like you're like, I always say it by like you weren't birthed out of your mother's pussy to
01:09:13.280
become an abuser of drugs or alcoholic, you know, and you're chasing a feeling, right?
01:09:22.720
And that's one that when I saw, I was just like, man, we, I would, we have got to have
01:09:29.160
And, uh, and then when I got turned on to the podcast even more, I'm like, oh, this
01:09:33.060
This is a, this is like a fun, goofy, educational, but also heartfelt place where I can hang out.
01:09:39.240
Um, let's get the guys in here and then we'll go to the video questions and do that then.
01:09:50.360
I was like, we'll still do a full hour with you.
01:09:55.200
So we're not going to be cutting it short at all.
01:09:58.860
Uh, when you had your cops, uh, chase, yes, I might have gotten some bad detail.
01:10:18.900
So it was like a fucking, it was like, um, it was like a, uh, a fucking, you know,
01:10:33.760
He had like a fucking, uh, like a little tool that he used for the yard.
01:10:44.880
Uh, but, and here's a, here's a, oh, and one more in prison before you realized that
01:10:51.620
And you were talking about their scuffles all the time.
01:10:53.300
And like, I'm sure there's gangs and stuff, but were people fucking with you?
01:11:00.880
No, no, there was, no, there was, there was shit talking, but then prison is also an environment
01:11:08.240
It's either you're into the shit or you're out of the shit.
01:11:11.000
And it was clear that I was out of the shit, you know what I'm saying?
01:11:13.560
And so, uh, even as you walk around, I'm not being boastful for myself, but there's a
01:11:18.100
lot of tough guys in prison, but I'm not a bitch myself.
01:11:21.140
And so you walk around with a demeanor and your demeanor is like, whatever is whatever,
01:11:26.560
you know, rather motherfucker want to fight, rather you want to do whatever.
01:11:35.340
On any level, but I'm not the toughest guy in prison.
01:11:38.120
And I, and I humbly say that because there's a, anybody, you know, who really runs the
01:11:42.640
prisons are Mexicans, you know, Mexicans, the Mexicans run America these days.
01:11:46.760
The guy who has the power is the guy who's willing to take it the furthest.
01:11:50.600
These guys, these Mexican guys in prison, just based upon where they're from, they don't
01:11:59.200
They don't, these dudes do not give a fuck about dying.
01:12:18.680
They, a lot of, a lot of guys have just like so many, like the tattoo, the rosary, they're
01:12:22.520
already, they almost just have like a funeral tattooed on their chest.
01:12:27.500
You got your whole family standing around a casket on your chest?
01:12:31.460
Let's get to one of these video questions real fast.
01:12:40.460
I'm a big fan of both of you guys, and I've been watching this past weekend since the beginning,
01:12:46.080
and I decided to call him for a question or a video in a question.
01:12:51.440
And so my question for Maurice is, what led to you choosing Ohio State to play football at?
01:12:58.960
And is there any advice you'd give me as a running back when picking what schools I'd like to go to?
01:13:05.980
So thank you both, and, you know, have a good day.
01:13:11.640
Yeah, well, Ohio State didn't offer me a scholarship.
01:13:14.800
I decided to go to Ohio State and told them I was coming, and that was it.
01:13:22.860
I knew the guys who were there, they weren't better than me.
01:13:25.960
You know, I was a lot more arrogant then, and I think you have to be arrogant and decisive
01:13:30.200
within your decision making to understand if a guy is better than you or not
01:13:32.900
and go where you feel that you want to go, not where you feel like maybe cool.
01:13:38.080
There's a lot of young guys who go to schools because they think the school is cool,
01:13:40.680
but it isn't a good fit for their skill set, you know, understanding your skill set.
01:13:45.580
But the biggest thing I can give advice to the guys, understand your skill set.
01:13:48.660
What do I do well, and does that translate to this environment right here?
01:13:54.720
And so I understood very well my skill set and what I did,
01:13:58.520
and then I looked at their offense, and it was the same thing.
01:14:00.940
And I went to go meet the guys, and I went to these guys,
01:14:05.000
and Mike Tyson is my greatest person I want to meet, him and Jim Carrey.
01:14:08.440
If I can meet Jim Carrey and sit down at halftime with Mike Tyson,
01:14:11.720
I think that that would be like some of the coolest shit.
01:14:16.520
I just was like, you know, I'm taking y'all shit.
01:14:18.280
And so Mike Tyson used to talk about the art of skullduggery,
01:14:21.740
and he said, you know, guys, they're very easy to compete behind each other's back,
01:14:26.180
but there's a different sort of reverence that you have when you tell a guy,
01:14:31.920
And so now it becomes like, I'm about to work my ass off,
01:14:35.940
And I knew that they didn't, and that's basically how I became.
01:14:44.100
this is what I'm putting on the line is that I'm going to do,
01:14:53.420
You know, so I'm going to take it to a place that I know that you can't.
01:14:56.960
take a motherfucker to the middle of the ocean.
01:15:05.760
I think the other guys would have some good input,
01:15:17.900
We'll be right back with the other guys from Business and Biceps.
01:15:27.080
and joining us is going to be the Business and Biceps guys,
01:16:02.660
over 20,000 classes in business, design, technology,
01:16:22.540
And our listeners will get two months of Skillshare
01:16:26.960
Skillshare is offering this past weekend listeners
01:16:43.400
This episode is also brought to you by Squarespace.
01:16:59.760
Quit running your business just in the real world.
01:17:53.540
That's Squarespace.com slash TheoVon for 10% off.