Mastering the Mindset
Mastering the Mindset
Navigating The Storm
What if the failures missed opportunities weren't actually failures? What if it was the universe redirecting you to your true path? Let's talk about navigating storms.
Become a supporter!
Listen To My Music!
YouTube Channel
Make a one time donation?
VENMO
PAYPAL
CASH APP
Need other options? Email me at:
dariusdotch@gmail.com
What's up everybody and thank you for listening to Mastering the Mindset. My name is Darius Dodge and I'm an actor, hip-hop artist and fitness and life coach, and I'm here to personally help you train and improve your mindset so that you can, one, become the best version of yourself mentally and, two, gain focus and motivation to be able to take action and achieve the success in life that you want and deserve. Before we get started, please like and subscribe to my channel and at the end of this episode, if you liked it, please share it with a friend or a loved one or someone who would benefit from hearing this message. I'm so glad you're here and I'm ready to go on this journey with you, and that journey begins now. That journey begins now. Hey, welcome back to another episode. Thank you for tuning in.
Speaker 1:If you're on YouTube, do me a favor and like and subscribe to the channel. It literally takes less than five seconds, so go ahead, do that for your boy right now. And if you're on a podcast platform, do me a favor and leave me a review. Greatly appreciate it. Also, there's a new way to support me you could become a monthly supporter of the podcast. I left the link in the description of the show and you get to choose the amount. It can either be three, five, eight or ten dollars, and you can also cancel at any time. But I mean, why would you ever want to do that? All these good episodes I be giving y'all, I mean, ok, anyway, let's get to it.
Speaker 1:So I want to talk about this thing we do and we all do. It is just in our human nature to do this, and I know you're going to feel what I'm talking about. So a lot of times these feelings come up. Right, we have this vision in our lives and this path we want to go down. Right, we have this vision in our lives and this path we want to go down. And when we're going through life and things start going in a different direction than what we planned on, it can have this really big negative impact on us. We can get frustrated, angry, we can feel like a failure, we can feel like it's too late, we can end up spiraling mentally and just want to throw in a towel. We can just get down and depressed about it.
Speaker 1:And I know I ain't the only person that's been there, done that. We all been there, and maybe you're there right now, and if you are, I'm so glad you happened to find this episode and the reason this happens to us is because we have this vision in our heads, this path of how life quote unquote should look like, and it involves these made up milestones that we want to hit, and a lot of times these milestones involve things like your age or your stage of life, like, by a certain time, I should be married or have kids, or be at a certain place in my career, or have a certain amount of money in my bank account or my savings. I should be it. I should be buying a home at this age, or living in a city that I ultimately want to call home at this age. And again, these milestones are made up.
Speaker 1:This ain't law. There's no adult handbook out there that we should be following to the T. Like I always say on here, your path is your path. You can't expect your journey, your life, to look like everybody else's. But we tie these milestones to our lives and what we think life should be, and we give our lives this negative evaluation. And in reality, there's just so much about life that we just can't control and in pursuit of whatever path we set out to have, usually, at a way, younger age, when we didn't understand the reality of adulthood, of adulting, and over time we just evolve and so many circumstances outside of your control and unforeseen circumstances throw curveballs at us. And the same thing is 100% true about goals. We could be holding on to this plan, this timeline, this path of how we want to get somewhere or get something accomplished, and if things don't play out that way, we feel like it ain't ever going to work out and we blame ourselves. We feel like a failure, we throw in the towel. We throw in the towel on our goals, all because this vision we had ain't going exactly as a plan, according to a timeline, according to how we quote unquote should look.
Speaker 1:And the idea for this episode came from another life coach I was listening to and they read a quote that I really like and something I want to talk about today. The quote was not all storms come into your life to disrupt. Some come to clear your path. Not all storms come into your life to disrupt. Some come to clear your path. And it makes me think about the part of life that we tend to not want to go through, that part of life when doors close, that we want to be open, but they were just meant to be closed and we really wanted it to be open. So bad we envisioned our lives, how we walk through that door and it makes our lives so much better. But in reality the door had to close for us because if it didn't, we wouldn't be walking on the path we are right now. And is it hard yes, it is To have those expectations, to be excited for that certain door to be open for you and to have it close on you. In that moment, in those moments, you can't see the future where it actually works out in your favor. In that moment, in those moments, you can't see the future where it actually works out in your favor. In that moment, the pain is real, it really is.
Speaker 1:And I bring up the example of my arrest record and how I got arrested for some straight BS and I ended up taking a plea deal to die of a felony, had this bogus charge on my record and they kept me from getting any kind of office job right out of college, and my minor is in business management. Getting any kind of office job right out of college and my minor is in business management, and you better believe. It's hard to get a job in somebody's business with a theft by swindle charge on your record, even if all you did was put trash bags in a dumpster that didn't belong to you. That door closed for me. It closed for me so I could be doing what truly is my passion, and that's acting, being an artist, and I know I'm truly meant to be on this path. There was a chance I didn't get a theater degree at all In high school. I was being recruited by the University of Northern Iowa. They came out and visited me at my auntie house. They sat in her living room and told me they wanted me and this would have been a full ride scholarship and I would have took it regardless, even if it was way out in the middle of Iowa. Fast forward the reason I didn't go is because they ended up taking these twins from Washburn High School and that was the last two scholarships they had.
Speaker 1:And fast forward again to my first show in college, my mentor and one of the first professional actors I met in Minnesota, also a friend of the family, my big homie J-Dub. He came to my school, to my college, the school I eventually ended up going to. So he drove an hour and a half to come see me and from then later, he told me that he knew that, after seeing me, that I was serious about this acting thing and that I had talent and that he believed in me. And from that moment he was going to bat for me, and he was the one that ended up helping me get my foot in the door. He casted me in my first professional show, continued to mention my name in rooms that I wasn't in, rooms I wasn't in yet, and the rest is history. He literally helped me get my career started.
Speaker 1:Now rewind If I was in the middle of Iowa, the chances of him coming to see me would have been slim to none and I definitely would not have gotten arrested for that dumb ass charge I got, because that also happened in college. And think about it Me not going to Iowa literally came down to a woman giving birth to twin boys instead of having one child. If they weren't twins and it was just one of them, then my life would look so different. Right now, who knows if I will be in theater, and you better believe it. I was hurt when I found out I wasn't getting a scholarship, and I know, whatever that door for you that closed caused you some pain, whatever that door for you that closed calls you some pain.
Speaker 1:It's hard and these moments, in these moments, it's good to be able to remind yourself about the perspective you have, that one day you will look back at that moment and see how the path you're on had to be the path you're on. It just had to be like the ex we all have. We all been there, done that. You was with somebody Maybe it was a high school sweetheart, maybe it was a previous marriage and you thought that that was your boo. You couldn't see yourself with nobody else. You just knew this is my person and fast forward, however it ended.
Speaker 1:Now you can see like, yep, that wasn't it, that wasn't it at all. And we have so many versions of this. We see it all the time with kids and toddlers. Right, a kid can have a full blown meltdown because you don't cut their banana a certain way To them in that moment, if you don't cut it in half the long way, oh my God, it's the end of the world. Even that simple thing, this small thing in their mind, it's real and how they wanted it to be. That's the way they saw life for them. And it's the same thing with adults. We can see our lives a certain way, a certain path, and when we don't get it, the pain is so real, just like that breakup.
Speaker 1:But after a period of time we see that past relationship actually helped shape and mold me to be a better version of myself, to be better equipped to be a better person for my next relationship or my current relationship. And I learned a lot from that relationship and I didn't even know I was learning in real time. And we have to remind ourselves that this happens with jobs, it happens with schools, it happens with opportunities, promotions. I know you can think of something in your past that you wanted bad. You wanted it to work out so bad, and now you have the perspective of knowing that it actually was really never supposed to work out, it wasn't on your path and thank God it didn't. Or you learned skills that you needed to learn that you couldn't have if it actually went the way you wanted it to. So we need to remind ourselves that, yes, we have the vision, yes, we see a certain path in our heads, yes, we know it ain't going to be easy. We know all that we see all that, but don't forget your path. It changes.
Speaker 1:Nothing ever goes exactly the way we planned it in our heads. Nothing like corporate work, events and workshops. I laugh every time I see them have the agenda planned out by the minute like 1215 introduction, 1225 speaker one. 1255 video presentation, 105 speaker two, 135 break. We've been there, you've seen it, and it never works. They are always behind. It always takes more time than they expected. Sometimes in life it just won't go the way we planned it.
Speaker 1:But what can we do? We can continue to take the steps in front of us. All we can do is worry about those steps and understand that as you grow and evolve, the steps you have to take will too. So don't get caught up in trying to take steps or worry about steps of a version of yourself that you just haven't become yet. You eventually will get to that path that you want to be on, but one, it's going to look different than it does now in your head, and two, you just haven't become the version of yourself that's down that path yet. So don't worry about steps a future version of yourself is going to take. Take the steps in front of you right now. We can get caught up in the future that we don't have when the future ain't even here yet. The present is here. In pursuit of where you want to go in life. You have to become that person who walks that path, and right now we just ain't there yet, and that's okay. But we have to accept it first to be able to take the next steps. And that's OK. But we have to accept it first to be able to take the next steps, like for me in this podcast.
Speaker 1:I know what my ultimate goals are. I know how many people I want to reach. I know how I want this thing to be a very successful business for me, how I want it to be something that when people think of me, they think of my name. The first thing that comes to their mind is he's an actor, he's a hip hop artist, he has a podcast. I know that I eventually want to have guests and I want to grow my following and all that stuff will come, but I ain't that version of myself right now, not yet.
Speaker 1:Right now, all I can do is focus on the people I have here now. You continue to make sure I give the ones I have here now to give them podcast episodes to continue to grow with y'all. Because, like I always say, this ain't the kind of podcast where I'm this millionaire and I'm telling you how, if you just do what I do, you'll get rich and famous too. No, that ain't how life works for the other 98 percent of the world. I'm here to figure this out with you. I'm on this journey with you and all I can focus on are the steps in front of me. I can't worry about those long term goals right now. I still have them, I'm still working towards them, but I'm not that version of myself to be to achieve those goals yet. So, as I'm working towards that, I have to take the steps in front of me right now. I can't be trying to live chapter 20 if I'm still in chapter three.
Speaker 1:So sometimes doors just have to close. Sometimes you need to learn that resilience. You need to learn how to ask for help. You need to learn and you don't have that perspective yet and those skills yet to see how this actually is all working out for you. And in these moments we have to have that belief that it is working out for us, just like that quote I said earlier not all storms come into your life to disrupt Some, come to clear your path. You have to truly believe that Maybe you had to get laid off, maybe you had to go through that breakup, maybe you had to feel that pain you're feeling, and we all know time is a healer, time is a teacher. Sometimes you just have to go through it to be able to elevate even higher. One of the things I had to accept and time showed me that it had to happen this way is my location and how I wanted to move.
Speaker 1:I was this close from moving from Minnesota to Atlanta and to take a leap of faith in my career, specifically for film, and I had the perfect transition plan too. I was cast in a show and this show had just got done, having a production in Atlanta. A theater company out in Atlanta had just done it and they casted me in it, and the reason I even got that opportunity was because the lead actor ended up taking a TV gig out there in Atlanta, so he couldn't do it and it was going to be the same exact cast. The only person different was going to be me, and they were going to bring the show up here to Minnesota and we were going to have rehearsals in Atlanta, since the company is in Atlanta, and they would bring the show up here to Minnesota right after that. So in my head I had this plan like, yep, this is it, this is how it's going to work out. I'm going to go down there and be in rehearsal for four weeks. I'm going to go out and meet people and network, get my name out there, and then my transition would be started Fast forward.
Speaker 1:Covid hit, and not only did the theater not do the show anymore, a couple of years later actors went on strike and nobody was filming anything. I was hearing stories about folks who got a lot of work in the past, only getting like one audition in a whole year or just not working period. And what horrible timing that would have been for me. Right, I would have been fresh out there, new move, huge career change and been out of work. I had that vision. I saw that path, but little did I know it wasn't meant to work out. I needed to keep working, to keep working on my craft, keep building this version of myself. And I'll be honest, over these past few years I got so much better as an actor, so much better as a hip hop artist so much better. I'm way better equipped to be placed anywhere and show my talents. But back then in 2019, I was like that toddler that wanted his banana cut the long way. I couldn't see it no other way. I didn't understand that not only could bananas be cut a different way, but there was this thing also called steak. In my future, there was also a thing called a buffet.
Speaker 1:Time is a healer and a teacher. Your path won't go the way you have it in your head. Curveballs and detours are going to happen. Sometimes your path has to be the one that takes longer and looks different. To prepare you for what's ahead. To prepare you how to deal with problems. To prepare you how to find those people in your life that you need to help you get to that next level. To prepare you with the skills you just don't have yet. To prepare you for what's next. Maybe you didn't get that thing you wanted, because what's really meant for you is something you need to have different people in your life, whether that's a friend, a co-worker or spouse. Sometimes you need to be redirected. Not all storms come into your life to disrupt. Some come to clear your path. It might not be working out for you right now because it's meant to be even better in the future.
Speaker 1:So that's what I got for you today. Again, I would love it if you became a supporter of the show. I left the link in the description for you. You can choose the amount and I thank you in advance. And the song I got for y'all today is Soul Food. So let's ride out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you see, people will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. People will never forget how you made them feel. Rest in peace, maya Angelou. She always kept it real. See, I want to make you feel it deep down in your soul, like a home-cooked meal.
Speaker 1:I'm talking soul food. I'm talking high-quad-ed, like whole foods. I'm talking. You don't need no mood ring for you to see. I changed my whole mood because I had to and some things, god let me go through because I had to, reflecting on my life. See, I got this soul food.
Speaker 1:I wanted fast food. I shoulda put a seatbelt around my arm, as in cashews. The way it drove me nuts. Right now it's a feast. Too afraid of the famine Made me eat too much. Hopefully I don't speak too much as our eyes close and heads bow. Supposed to be grace, it sound like prayer.
Speaker 1:Damn, I'm stressed out. Please forgive me, but I've been stressed out. Lord knows I've been stressed out but I keep smiling, poking my chest out, my navigation broken Cause I can't find the best route. Ain't nothing stopping I stay going my closet, pulling my best out. I'm glad you came. I hope you hungry. Let me pull your chair out.
Speaker 1:I made some soul food. Yeah, some food for thought. Don't be rude, don't throw salt. My name ain't food. Keep it out your mouth. I know you See sauce. I stay true to myself and keep it a hundred. Something that can't be. Ain't no beef or gravy, don't forget it's take three. I stir the pot like jambalaya and that's work to my auntie, cause I've been feeling hungry. Now I'm feeling hangry. I'm feeling like I'm the tightest.
Speaker 1:Some of y'all got the itis, like you, eating barbecue, chicken, macaroni with a side of baked beans. Yeah, they sleeping on me, chip on my shoulder, eating good, so I keep it on me. I'm out the bourbon. This ain't for no eggnog. That ain't for no sour food. Yeah, and I hate being broke with a passion.
Speaker 1:Had to hustle, I made it happen. Every time I start making cabbage or collard greens or mustard greens, I turn up. Yeah, I used to trust everybody. Had to break the habit. Nowadays, if I don't know you, I don't trust you. Like potato salad Nowadays it don't take much to be small things that make me happy. I just want some fried chicken wings and red beans made by my granny. Rest in peace to my granny. Rest in peace to everybody I ever lost in my family. Rest in peace to my mama.
Speaker 1:Some things in life just gotta happen. I probably need therapy. At least I'm aware of it. That's why I sound like a vent when I'm rapping. I probably should talk about shit when it happen, for whatever reason. It don't feel manly. I need some soul. I wanna cook for ya. I'll even do the dishes. So take a seat, stay a while. You see me with a smile. Don't mean I'm weak, so don't try. Ain't nothing sweet but potato pie. Speaking of pie, I need me a slice. I'm talking financial stability. I'm done with humble pie. I'm just a humble guy. I gotta switch up my energy. I gotta get my head together, cause I don't know what they got into me. I can't let quarantine get to me, starting to get to me mentally. We'll be right back. You better not sit down. I bust your head. I keep it real and I say how I feel. I don't renege. I want to go back to being the kid with the big head at the table and sofa. Thank you.