Overcoming Self-sabotage and Limiting beliefs with K-Rahn Vallatine

Embark on an enlightening journey with K-Rahn Vallatine, the esteemed author and educator steering Live Above the Hype, as he weaves tales of personal growth and pivotal encounters that have shaped his mission to uplift the youth. From the confounding days of the crack epidemic to his ascent as a beacon for positive change, Keron's personal mantra to embrace greatness without awaiting affirmation has left a lasting imprint on his life's work. This episode invites listeners to discover the transformative power of recognizing one's inherent value and potential, regardless of past trials and societal barriers.

As we unravel the profound effects of the crack epidemic on youth and community dynamics, K-Rahn guides us through the turbulent landscape of children entwined in the drug trade, challenged by skewed cultural reverence. The conversation takes a hard look at the demanding scenarios faced by kids of the crack era. It lasts today, the psychological ramifications, and how the media played a role in glamorizing a perilous lifestyle. K-Rahn's insights prompt a reevaluation of the complex interplay between culture, self-identity, and morality, offering an empathetic understanding of the pressing choices made by individuals in high-stakes environments.

Concluding with a forward-thinking perspective, K-Rahn shares his philosophy on investing time wisely to sculpt a legacy that resonates across generations. His latest literary offering, "Aligning Yourself with the Success You Desire," is a testament to his dedication to guiding others toward their personal greatness. This episode casts light on the shadows of the past and serves as a beacon, inviting us to foster individual and collective success through daily, intentional actions. Join us for a captivating exploration into the soul of resilience and the pursuit of a purpose-driven life.

www.liveabovethehypestore.com

Transcript

Keith: 0:58

is K-Rahn Valentine. He's a successful author, curriculum course developer and training consultant. The depth of his knowledge, combined with his interesting life experiences and storytelling, makes every event that he leads meaningful and entertaining. He's the executive director of Live Above the Hype, an entertainment nonprofit company that supports the personal development of youth and young adults and the professional development of educators, service providers, leaders and other corporate staff. Keron is a profound ability to facilitate conversations on complex and uncomfortable topics by delivering content that is organized intentionally through a dialogue with interactive and self-reflective activities that create more understanding, empathy, self-awareness, group awareness and emotional intelligence. We welcome him to the podcast. Well, I'm so glad to have you on the show today. How you doing, K-Rahn ?

K-Rahn : 2:01

I'm great Happy to be here.

Keith: 2:03

Good to have you on. I want to dive right in, so I'm going to get you a chance to get to know you a little better. I'm going to ask you my favorite question of all my guests what's the best piece of advice you've ever received?

K-Rahn : 2:16

The best piece of advice I've ever received is you have what it takes. Give yourself permission to be great.

Keith: 2:25

I like that.

K-Rahn : 2:26

That's the best advice I ever received, because up until I heard that, I always felt, even though I had gifts and talents and vision and all kinds of things, I always felt I had to hide it under somebody else, I had to be cosigned by somebody else, I had to be validated by somebody else, until the sister told me. She said Keron, you're it, you have it. Give yourself permission to be great and just do it. You don't need to continue to dimmer down, simmer down your light and hide under somebody else.

K-Rahn : 3:02

So I would say that was the best advice I ever got.

Keith: 3:06

I love that.

K-Rahn : 3:07

Yeah.

Keith: 3:08

All of us have had people in our lives who have served to inspire us, be mentors for us, who are some people in your life you want to kind of give a shout out to that have been that critical in your development.

K-Rahn : 3:22

I want to give a shout out to my high school counselor who has not seen me since high school, miss Ramsey, because you know, only miss Ramsey's alive. I talk about her in my books and everything. She saw past a lot of the social barriers at the time. The time I was a very disengaged young man. I fit the profile of a lot of the stereotypes. She saw past all of that and spoke past all of that and spoke to who I am and put her working. So I would definitely say Miss Ramsey, of course my mom. My mom was a was and is a strong support system in my life and a lot of my mentors have come from people I have not met.

Keith: 4:07

Okay.

K-Rahn : 4:08

Meaning. You know it's been through social media or YouTube or books I've read. You know it's John Henry Clark. You know it may be Napoleon Hill. All of these people I consider my mentors because they left so many nuggets through their work for people like me to follow through and pick up the breadcrumbs.

Keith: 4:27

I love that. I think those people do kind of serve to give us inspiration, to show us their journey and show us what could be.

K-Rahn : 4:35

Yes.

Keith: 4:37

Where we could end up.

K-Rahn : 4:40

Absolutely, absolutely.

Keith: 4:42

So I'm going to dig in a little deeper now. Tell us your personal story.

K-Rahn : 4:47

My personal story. What part Like? What aspects?

Keith: 4:50

Whatever part you want to pick, I'll leave it up to you.

K-Rahn : 4:54

My personal story is I'm a young, I was a young man growing up. I have a book called Beyond the crack generation, so I'll start with that. Growing up in the crack epidemic, in a culture that was very counterproductive, you know. So during this time is the 80s and 90s, young black male growing up in a time where society, particularly entertainment and the culture, and I believe that these false narratives of what a black, young black male should be and I believed a lot of that stuff, you know. I believed that man who was about being again counterproductive, you know, destructive, all of these destructive factors, was what man who was, what was about. And I believe that I got blessed.

K-Rahn : 5:46

Miss Ramsey's, you know, helped me get into college and when I got to college I was in a whole nother environment and everywhere you go, there you are. So I took myself with me and I still had a way of gravitating to some, to the nonsense, even in a college setting, until I got hold of some information. You know, particularly in my case it was black history and black empowerment and just just positive imagery of myself and I came to the conclusion that I'm part of the problem and I remember looking around, I was, I was in college looking around like you have nobody to blame, you got, everything is right here. All the stuff that you claim is the problem. They're not here.

Keith: 6:32

None of that is here.

K-Rahn : 6:33

You have the opportunity to do whatever you want. And here you are still finding yourself in the same situations because you are part of the problem. Okay, Ron, you know what I'm saying. I have nobody to blame.

K-Rahn : 6:43

And then, when that light bulb went off, I said I want to be a part of the solution and at that point I started to read like a madman, I started to become a scholar and I started to figure out what can I do to be a part of the solution. So, you know, I started to separate myself from some of the behaviors and circles that I have found myself around, and I became a hermit for a minute, because I just really wanted to redefine who I am, rediscover who I am. And, with that being said, I wanted to as I started to get older. I wanted to become a teacher. So I became a teacher because I wanted to go back and teach other young black males and young black females the same thing that I was learning. And then I didn't want to have to go through this long process before the light bulb moment came. So I became a teacher and I talked for five years middle school.

K-Rahn : 7:32

Then I wanted to impact my community in a deeper way. So I started to work with young incarcerated young men in Los Angeles young ladies too as well, but mostly young men. So I worked with incarcerated young men for about 10 years and in that process of while I was doing that, I also started to create tools. I started to create curriculums, life skills curriculums, things that really spoke to my younger self, things that I thought I would need. You know, I grew up in the just say no era, but just say no did not help me, it made no impact. You know what I'm saying? Just say no. The police coming through telling me how stupid drugs are, you know anyway, they just didn't. So I wanted to figure out what could I do. You know, what did I need to hear? So I created a curriculum called live above the height, which really was about what it says helping our young people live above this height so they don't self sabotage, and things of that nature.

K-Rahn : 8:32

And with that, and then I ended up becoming an author and writing books and you know all of these things and doing trainings and all the stuff that I do today, but, with all that being said, my story is I'm a young man at the time, a young man who was very disengaged and caught up in the hype, who wanted to be a part of the solution and then left myself no excuses to be a part of the solution. You know so, creating books, creating tools with no backing, just doing it, and I encourage others to do the same.

Keith: 9:00

So you're telling me that commercial this is your brain, is your brain on drugs? That didn't help.

K-Rahn : 9:05

I didn't help at all, absolutely nothing. When I got access to all the nonsense, I was gone. You know what I'm saying. It did not help. The egg didn't help. The egg didn't help.

Keith: 9:21

I know let's dig in a little bit more, because you know a lot of audience don't understand. I mean, I understand the crack generation, so kind of. Give us some perspective for those who are watching this. Give us some perspective for those who are hearing that going. That's a nice title. I don't necessarily get it. So what is that crack generation? What does that look like for people who lived in that generation?

K-Rahn : 9:47

Yeah, thanks for asking that. First, I will start off by saying during the crack epidemic again, the 80s and 90s in particular it wasn't everybody was strung out on crack, it wasn't everybody was selling dope. So let's first of all shatter that narrative. Everybody wasn't crack dealers and crack addicts. It was a very small percentage, but that small percentage was very concentrated you know what I'm saying and very influential. So I say all that to say, during this epidemic, the crack era was very detrimental to the community as a whole, and what I mean by that is because, particular during this time this is where, because I've worked with youth a lot, like I shared this people want to know what happened. This is the time when a lot of the generational rankings flipped, where people say what happened why did we lose our youth?

K-Rahn : 10:39

Because during this time the crack business and I got to call it a business unlike any other drug trade was a kid's business. It was a child's drug trade. You know, if you look at old mob movies and you know gangster movies, remember the kid had, before he could be a part of the mob or whatever, he had to be a runner. He had to get a sandwich and go, do all of these things and work his way up. During the crack epidemic it was none of that. All you needed was $20. If you had $20, you could get in the drug business. So you could be a 12-year-old kid who has aspirations of being a dentist or a doctor and has absolutely no criminal ties at all. You know, but you live in this environment and you're growing up around people who may be making money off this. You're 12, 13 years old. You're seeing the 14-year-old who is in the drug business making, you know, wads like this, some money. You know, and I'm simplifying it. But that 12-year-old says how are you making that money? He says all you need is $20, $20 to get you a double up. You know, because it was wholesale and I'm not going to go all into the business, part of it, but we live in a capitalist society.

K-Rahn : 11:53

So you know, as I go back, before I finish that story, every child has asked their mom why do I need to go to school, son? You need to go to school to get an education. Why do I need to get a good education To get a good job? Why do I need to get a good job to get money? Oh well, my neighbor right here, just told me a quicker way to get money. I could save myself, you know, the rest of the six years of school, right, right, because that's what you told me, just about getting money.

K-Rahn : 12:20

So, going back to the story, you know a 12-year-old 13-year-old could get in the drug trade so easy. Now the challenge with that is the drug trade that we're talking about, which is the crack, is a kid's business, so the kids are selling it, but unfortunately it's the adults that are smoking it. So now you got this 12, 13-year-old kid who's on the block for you know a huge amount of hours with these adults who are willing to do almost anything for this little tiny piece of crack rock, and this kid has a whole pocket full of them.

Keith: 12:56

Right.

K-Rahn : 12:57

So what it's doing is ripping the psyche, you know and I say all of this to try to take the shame out of it, because no disrespect to the drug addict either because you know, I believe it was chemical warfare on our community, you know. So, with that being said, that's happening, so that's what's going on in the community and that's starting to create a youth culture that is very disrespectful to elders, because now we have what I call adultless communities, because adults, you know, even though we had wrong folks but adult's job is to provide, protect and teach. If I'm the crack dealer and I'm making, you know, fist-loads of money, you're not providing the way I'm providing.

Keith: 13:41

Right.

K-Rahn : 13:41

You're not teaching me what I'm interested in learning and you can't protect me for the wilderness. There's streets out here. So at this point we're fending for ourselves. So it's creating this culture, this youth culture. You know, that's actually detrimental and we're actually feeding off our own death, right, right. So I'll stop right there as far as the community part of it. But at the same time it's like the perfect storm.

K-Rahn : 14:07

You got millions and millions of dollars being pumped into the entertainment business, which is also, you know, fascinated by this lifestyle, right? So, where you had a few people that was telling the story, like NWA, like with Dope man and all of that type of stuff, they was telling the story and it was more reality rap. People said, oh no, there's something about this narrative. We need more people who can tell this story. We don't want the public enemies and stuff, no more. We want people who can tell this story. We want more Dope man. So more money is being put into whoever can talk about the Dope, whoever can talk about pimping, whoever can talk about all of the activities that's going on in this counterculture, right, and then it's on the big screen. All that is going on during this crack era. This is back in Virginia. You see what I'm saying. So it's not just about the crack dealer. It's a whole storm going on at the same time that created a culture and created a mindset that many of us are still recovering from.

Keith: 15:07

I mean I think about one of the most popular movies during the time Boys in the Hood, I mean it was. That was all of a drug, whole drug movie. It was like one of the biggest hits in our community.

K-Rahn : 15:20

Yes, and the beauty of boys in the hood unlike most of the of us, because you got boys in the hood and then you have menace in society. You remember menace in society, Very similar to boys in the hood. The beauty about boys in the hood is they have various styles in there. They had the conscious black man to counter and counteract some of the activities going on and explain some of these things that was going on where most of us grew up without various styles.

K-Rahn : 15:48

So we didn't have anybody to put, give us any context of what was going on. We were just like this is life, you know, nobody could put the pieces together for us.

Keith: 15:56

Right.

K-Rahn : 15:56

Exactly, absolutely.

Keith: 15:57

Yeah, so for those who understand I think you kind of helped us understand a little bit too for those who are listening about the hype. So as you work with young people, how do you get them to look beyond, like you said, live, live beyond that hype and realize that that lifestyle that you are aiming for or shooting for is kind of a dead end and there is something better. How do you get to that next level, to get out of that that circular mindset of destruction?

K-Rahn : 16:26

Yeah Well, first. First, the first piece is helping them to understand their self-worth, because a lot of times young men and young ladies, unfortunately in these environments, have low self-worth for a lot of different reasons, so they already don't think their life is worth much. So you know, in order to find value in my life, I need to find it through materialism and money and all of this type of stuff. Look, first we have to build up their self-worth and let them know you are great just because of who you are, regardless of what kind of what's in your pocket. You know first, because your, your worth is not defined by this material stuff. That's the first thing.

K-Rahn : 17:05

And then, once they start to understand that they have self-worth, then they're less, less urgent. I mean, they're less what's the word? They're not as quick to throw away their life, because without self-worth I could tell you all day about the consequences and and all of the different things that come with the lifestyle, but it's like who cares anyway, I'm not really worth nothing anyway. So I might as well try it. So we start with self-worth and then we start to help them critically think about the lifestyles there, I mean the decisions they're making. Like one of the questions I asked is because I'm never telling a young man or a young lady who's involved in certain lifestyles to stop, because I don't really know their story. Most stories are a lot more complicated than what we say or what we think. If a young man is gang involved, I can't just say, hey, just walk away from the gang. It doesn't. It doesn't work like that.

K-Rahn : 17:56

Right, I wish it did, but it don't work like that. You know the streets don't work like that. So I can't say, hey, just stop. But what I can help them do I can't say is the life that you're leading right, living right now, is it going to lead you to the life that you really want? You know, you know this is this. You're not in the 80s or 90s, so you've had plenty of opportunity to see previous generations and see how this story ends. See, in the 80s and 90s.

K-Rahn : 18:21

The other part about that story is we didn't know how it ended. You know, we thought we found the magic pill. We thought we found the you know, the Jack in the Beanstalk. We found it. We got 30, 40 years of examples to see how this ends. So I asked him you know how this is going to end. You know, dude, is this going to lead you to what you want? And if they say no, then we say let's figure out a plan on how we're going to get you there. It's not going to happen overnight. Your change is not going to happen overnight, but we can figure out how to get you there. But it starts with helping them value themselves, you know, and really building that self image.

Keith: 18:56

I used to work at a. We had a school as part of our church and I remember asking the kids in the class one day what do you want to be when you grow up? And one girl in the class said she wanted to be a CSI detective. You know who worked with the crime units and all that Cause. She saw that show. I love that. The one that broke my heart was a young lady who said I just want to be a video dancer because that's the best thing I can do growing up. And it just I'm like, oh, it's got to be so much more to your life than being a video dancer.

K-Rahn : 19:30

And the thing about video dancers he could. So it comes about what does she?

Keith: 19:34

value.

K-Rahn : 19:34

What does she probably see in the video dance? Okay, they're getting love. Now, obviously it's fake love, but they're getting a certain amount of love and attention. They're getting money. They're not getting money.

K-Rahn : 19:45

We know that, like, video dancers don't get money, but it looks like she's getting money, she's getting love, she's getting a certain amount of fame, she's getting access to certain lifestyles. You know, that's what it looks like, right? So in her head, okay, this is probably the best way to get a lot of that stuff that I want. Right, very similar to the, to the young man who wants to be the dope dealer. Right, but, contrary to popular belief, you know, people always talk about fast money, fast money, but most dope dealers are not rich. You know what I'm saying? Most dope dealers don't grow, they're not rich.

K-Rahn : 20:18

So, let's, let's see, we'll shatter that fast buddy narrative. It's not, it's not what you. You know what I'm saying. They're not Tony Montana and all of this. No, they're not. You know what I'm saying. So, but, but that's what, that's what's publicized, right, that's what's promoted. So, like, with that young lady helping her with her self-worth, right, do you really want to be that dancer? Or what is it about that dancer that you want. What did that dancer have that you want? And is there other ways to get that Right?

K-Rahn : 20:47

because there's always just a you know means to an end, right, do you really want to be a dancer or do you want what you think that dancer has? And if whatever you think she has, what's another route of getting that? You know, those are type of questions I ask these young people.

Keith: 21:00

Yeah, so let's talk about your curriculum, because I'm curious Kind of how you help young people do it. So your name, your curriculum, is live above the hype life skills. So how do you encourage students to think about the impact of their current decisions We'll have on their life outcomes? So how do you facilitate that conversation?

K-Rahn : 21:19

Yeah, so that's exactly. I like the word language you use because that's exactly what it is. It's a curriculum full of facilitated conversations, right? So, for instance, again, I can only think of, I could think about how I thought everything that I, you know, thought May it made sense to me because nobody walked me through the process. So, like, for instance, I was speaking their language. You know, a lot of them might, might, like to gamble, so I'll ask them if we were shooting dice, would you put down a thousand dollars and I put down ten dollars and we gamble, right?

Keith: 21:55

right.

K-Rahn : 21:55

Most of them say, no, I wouldn't do that. I say why not just shoot dice? You put down a thousand, I'll put down ten. No, that's stupid. I say why is it stupid? Because I'm putting down the thousand, you putting down ten. What, what's why? It was wrong with it? You're only putting down ten, I say but you got a chance to win ten dollars, so what's the point? Why not put your $1,000 down? And then the lightbox I'm waiting for them to say it the lightbox comes off.

K-Rahn : 22:22

I have way more to lose than I have to gain in that bet. Right, bingo, that's how these streets are. You got way more to lose than you have to gain in that bet. So you go, you do this crime, but look how much you have to lose. You know I'm saying look, I mean people you hurting for, especially if you over 18. Look at the time you have to serve, look at all that.

K-Rahn : 22:44

You know I'm saying I just help them critically. Think you have way more to lose than you have to gain. Just like you wouldn't put that thousand dollars down. Don't put that thousand dollars down with your life, right, because your life is worth way more than a thousand dollars. Right, you have way more to lose than you have to gain. So you know it starts off like that.

K-Rahn : 23:02

Then the progressively goes to Actually success principles. But first we have to Undo, we have to de-educate, you know, have them critically think, because they have to start to think like, okay, wait, this doesn't make sense. Now, once they start to want to live above the height, then we start to get into other other principles. You know, we start talking about college, we start talking about generational wealth. We start talking about, you know, making decisions, making decisions and following through you, all these type of things. It's that type of stat type of curriculum just to really help them unpack and take them on the journey of of critical thinking and assessing and analyzing the culture around them. I don't put a moral basis on anything. I don't use right or wrong, right, right, because Depending on how you grew up or what your situation is, you know right and wrong. Morality gets very murky. So I won't tell them, you know, don't do it just because it's wrong, but I will help them critically think about it.

Keith: 23:59

You know those type of things so for, for those who see that, that community, from the outside and misjudge so much about it you know, because I hear people say, well, why don't people just make better choices? Um, you don't have to live like that, you, you could do something what would you say to people who just kind of just don't really understand and I would say the the reality of the streets and the reality of people's situation who are stuck in those, in those situations?

K-Rahn : 24:29

Yeah, that's. That's a great one too. Um, I just had a conversation not too long ago about free will, and I'll start I started my answer with this. So I shared with them because they say we all have free will I shared with them that free will Is directly correlated with your awareness and your consciousness. Your will is only free is what you're aware of, right? Right, if I you know, if I don't, if I don't, if I'm not even aware Of certain things, I don't know what I don't know.

K-Rahn : 24:58

So, with that being said, like what I just brought up when I talked about this crack epidemic, instead of talking about the crack epidemic, so to speak, I, you know, my focus shifts to the culture, and culture dictates morality a lot of times. So if you're growing up in the community let's just say you're growing up in the community that Values education, that values home ownership, that values generational wealth, that has a very um Kindred relationship with law enforcement, your morality is going to be a lot different than if you're in a community that is unfortunately In survival mode, does not have generational wealth, has a very adversarial relationship with, um, law enforcement, right? So you just using that as an example, using community a is the first one. Community b is the second one. If I'm Assaulted in community a because that's the language we're going to use the community a I'm assaulted, I may just very well call the police, right? Right, why wouldn't I to sit there and fight in the middle of the street or fight in school and all that that's. That's actually going against my morals. It's like why would you do that? Just call the police and let the police handle.

K-Rahn : 26:17

Community b If I'm hit, you know, I mean if somebody sock me in the mouth and I call the police, that's a violation, right? First of all, how could you not fight back? That's the first thing. You don't hear about that. You could be in third grade.

K-Rahn : 26:30

You hear about that to you 40 years old, right, you let they do. Smash you in the mouth when you, when we was eight. You will hear that for the rest of your life. Right, right, let a law firm call the police Because we have had an adversarial relationship with law enforcement for centuries.

K-Rahn : 26:48

Right there's no way of explaining out of way, you know, we come into this country, you know, with slavery and all of that type of stuff. So I use those two examples to understand that both of those have created a culture. And once you're in this culture, culture creates social norms. Culture, culture creates perspectives and beliefs. And once you have beliefs, now you have your paradigm. It's very hard to get out of a paradigm. It's very hard to get out of a set way of seeing the world.

K-Rahn : 27:17

And when you're in these environments, depending on the environments that you're in and you're nurtured, that environment typically is going to I'm gonna use the word influence, but I need a stronger word but it's going to very mold. It's going to mold the way you see the world and it's going to mold your behaviors and your decisions and it's even going to mold your aspirations. And I'll share this last story real quick. I remember being in college when I told you I was in college and I remember being partying with some white guys and we just partying, we having a good time and all of that, and they told me that they're going to study abroad. Now, I never heard of study abroad. My mind was somewhere else. Was study abroad. Okay, tell me more, I don't know what this means, Right?

K-Rahn : 28:02

I don't know what this means, right? So they explained to me that studying abroad is there under the under the school, but they're able to travel into another country and and Still be under the umbrella of the school. I said, wow, man, that's awesome. And when you get back, man, you let me know how that go. Not one time did it cross my mind that I could study abroad too. We're in the same school. Instead of me telling them to let me know how it is when you get back, what I should have said is let me know what office you went to so I could go to the same office and fill out the same forms so I can study abroad. But my self-identity? Back to me, talking about self-identity and self-image, my self-identity didn't even allow me to entertain that this is what white people do in my head.

K-Rahn : 28:53

Oh remember I said this is white guy, this is white guy this is white people stuff.

Keith: 28:56

Oh, y'all, oh you're being.

K-Rahn : 28:57

Let me know how it go. It never crossed my mind that we're in the same school. So when people ask like you can just do this, we don't understand how much culture and self-image and self-limiting beliefs and all of these things weigh on the way we see the world. So you can put somebody in an environment and give them the opportunity and they still may miss it if you don't help them with their self-image and help them process what they're seeing.

Keith: 29:25

That's a good point. I remember when my son was in high school and they would have these college preparatory means with the parents and I'd go to those meetings with my son and I was probably one of maybe two black parents who were in that room with their kids and the school kept asking me why where the rest of the black parents at I'm like? Well, I guarantee you none of them, I wouldn't say none of them, a lot of them didn't go to college. So they don't understand the process of what it takes to prepare your child to go to college. You don't. They don't understand that you start really as a freshman. If you don't start your kid as a freshman, thinking about college, making the grades to go to college, to being in the right club, so you have a bigger portfolio, a bigger resume to present to a college, it doesn't cross most of them as until senior year. By that time you have wasted three years because you are not prepared. You haven't done your SAT, sat, you haven't filled out paperwork, you haven't made campus visits. You are already three years behind your white counterparts because no one told you what the process was. I'm like you have to actually get to the parents freshman year and say here is the process. If you want your child to go to college, let us help you figure out this process.

Keith: 30:48

When I went to college I was the first one in my family. My mom didn't tell me how to register in college. I had to go figure it out for myself. I had to do all of it, apply myself. It wasn't that she wasn't supportive. She didn't know what the process was, and so I had to learn all that on the ground myself. So when my kids went I at least knew there was a process there, right?

K-Rahn : 31:13

No, that's the perfect example. Again, we don't know what we don't know. And then the question becomes what was those parents' relationship with school?

Keith: 31:21

And they came up.

K-Rahn : 31:21

What was their experience? So a lot of parents don't even want to deal with school. And then there's that intimidation factor. Then it's like you say I don't know what, I don't know and I don't want to come up there and I don't know. And now I feel less than. And all of these things are going in a person's mind, right, absolutely. That's huge. That's huge, right there.

Keith: 31:44

As you think about this current generation, what is your greatest concern?

K-Rahn : 31:52

My greatest concern is their self-image. That is my greatest concern. I keep going back to that because I'm talking about mentors and stuff, right, and mentors we never met. Bob Proctor said no one operates beyond the boundaries of their own self-image. It's like a thermostat. If I set my thermostat to 72 degrees in my office right now, if it gets hotter than 72 degrees, the air is going to come on, cool this room back to 72. If it gets colder than 72, the heat is going to kick on, warm this room back up to 72. Self-image is the exact same way. So whoever we think we are, we're going to always bring ourselves back to that, even if it means self-sabotage. So I'm very concerned about who our young people think they are. Again, going back to our generation, who do we think we were?

K-Rahn : 32:44

We thought we were many of the fictional characters that we heard in this music and in these movies. We were really aspiring to be what? Now I look as fictional characters because these were creative minds creating these stories through music, creating these stories through movies. Yeah, it was based on reality, but they were fictional characters. You brought up boys in the hood. I wanted to be a dough boy. Dough boy is a fictional character. He may be based on some real life people, but he was a fictional character Ice Cube, as you said.

K-Rahn : 33:19

I'm saying I'm very concerned about our young people's self-image and where they're drawing their self-image from College. You're looking at college. A lot of young people aren't aspiring to go to college because their self-image is not aligned with college. Their self-image is the way the young lady wanted to be the dancer. Her self-image was aligned with that. You see what I'm saying. My self-image was aligned to wanting to be whoever I thought I wanted to be. So even when you give me these opportunities, I'm a squanderer if it doesn't align with my self-image. So that's my biggest concern. How, then I'm still challenged by that how do we help our young people develop a healthy self-image so they can pursue these opportunities and prosper? Because, again, you'll find a lot of young people will self-sabotize because of their self-image.

Keith: 34:15

Yeah, it was a very confused musical self-image. I had two major influences. There was Prince and LL Cool J, so you could imagine how confused that was. I was in the spectra but I healed and can't go. There you go.

K-Rahn : 34:33

Yeah, the both of them was cool. They both were super cool.

Keith: 34:37

Yeah, I like Prince, because Prince didn't care what other people thought.

K-Rahn : 34:42

At all.

Keith: 34:42

And LL was just cool, so it's like you had that. I don't care what everybody else thinks, I have to fit in anybody else's box. And then LL, who was like, he just was cool, so it's like I had those two images.

K-Rahn : 34:58

I'm trying to break out your balance though.

Keith: 35:00

You know what I'm saying.

K-Rahn : 35:02

There you go. Balance, yeah, balance the thought. For sure that's a good one.

Keith: 35:08

Let's talk about your latest book a little bit. So you have a new book out Aligning Yourself with the Success you Desired 13 Keys to Unlock your Personal Greatness. Tell us about why you wrote the book and what you old people pick up when they read that book.

K-Rahn : 35:21

Yeah, everything that I create is all very intentional and purpose. So we talked about Live, about a Hype, and we helping our young people live about a hype and get this self image and all of that OK. Once you get that, the question becomes now what? So? What do I do? You know what I'm saying. I can be motivated and all, but what do I do? So I wrote a very small practical book to give people keys Young and old people, key stuff that I've learned on practical things that are aligned with success, and I'll give you some examples.

K-Rahn : 35:55

Like something very simple, like time can be spent or invested. So you look at your day and how you spend your day and things that they spend, how you spend your time. People say I don't have time, but you have time. It's just how are you spending it? If you, if you spend 10 minutes scrolling on Instagram which many of us do, probably even more than that that could have been invested in 10 minutes of studying a book right Study and success principles or something like that, you know. So I mean it's things like that where I, where I help people, take all the mysticism out of success and give them real, practical things. You know if, if, if something caused a slight edge that I had heard about, you know to still talking about investing time.

K-Rahn : 36:39

If you read 10 pages of a book every day and I read zero pages of a book every day the first day you only read 10 more pages than me. You probably don't have that much of an edge over me. But if you've done it every day for a year, you've read 3,650 more pages than I've read just by spending that small amount of time to read them 10 pages. So what are we doing? You know what I'm saying for our success, because success is not about achieving it, it's about aligning with it.

K-Rahn : 37:14

You have to be another one, and I learned from a lot of people another one Myron Golden. He's saying in order to have what you want to have, you must do what you need to do, and that's where we all stop. But you can only do what you need to do by becoming who you need to be. A lot of people don't do what they need to do because their mindset hasn't yet become developed enough to do it. They don't even have the capacity to be disciplined enough to do what it takes to be successful because they haven't developed it. So things like that. Those are the type of things that we talk about.

Keith: 37:49

That's awesome. So what are you most excited about in this season of your life?

K-Rahn : 37:55

What I'm most excited about is getting all this stuff out. So everything I have done has been very organic. I am a practitioner first. So when I wrote Live Above the Hype, I wrote it because I was working with the young people. I wrote it for directly and then it ended up just getting bigger and people wanted it and that's how it happened. It wasn't. I wrote it, went to a publisher and then we got it out. We had this big old launch. No, it was literally me working in real time.

K-Rahn : 38:24

When I wrote Beyond the Crack Generation, I wrote it because I was working with people who are working with these communities and I wanted to help them get insight. I never even did a book launch for it. Same with aligning yourself with the success you desire and with the Live Above the Hype Success Academy. So what I'm excited about now is God has put on my heart K-Ron, I have blessed you to create a lot of stuff and I love that you create and all of this type of stuff. But an apple tree doesn't bear fruit all year. You just can't keep creating, creating. Get this stuff out. So now I'm getting real focused on having a very intentional plan to get the curriculum, the books, the online courses. Get all of that stuff out to the people because it's actually making impact and we want to make the most massive impact that we can make. So that's what I'm excited about now.

Keith: 39:22

It's impacting the world, cool. So, with that in mind, I'd love to ask my guest this question what do you want your legacy to be?

K-Rahn : 39:31

I want my legacy to be, just like I shared before, how I have mentors who I've never met, I want my legacy to be that K-Ron, he left for impact, he left for blueprint, he made it count. He was here and he made it count. He left himself no excuses. So I'm not going to leave myself no excuses. I want somebody to see that he didn't wait for an organization to get behind him. He didn't wait for a publishing company to get behind him. He didn't wait before he had five degrees. He didn't wait before he was rich. He used what God gave him and made the most of it, and waited for God to bring the increase. And I'm going to do the same. So that's what I want my legacy to be Make it count, make every day count.

Keith: 40:16

I love that. I did check out your website. You got some cool merch on there. I saw the living above the hype t-shirts and socks and all that. So where can people find your website and your material and where can they connect with you on social media?

K-Rahn : 40:30

Yeah, ok, if you go to innersunconsultingcom, everything is there. It'll give you my books. It'll give you links to my books, give you links to if you want me to come speak, all of that. You can also go to Live Above the Hype Store if you want to go straight to the store and just want to go straight to the merch. Live Above the Hype Store. And on social media. I'm on LinkedIn, kvalentine On LinkedIn. I'm also on IG. I'm working on being more active on social media, so I'm at Live Above it. If you go to Live Above it on IG, you'll find me there, and that's pretty much how you find me.

Keith: 41:10

Well, thank you so much. I really enjoyed this conversation and what you're doing is inspiring, and I pray people will find your content, use it in the communities where they've been called to serve and make an impact, because I think we do need to help people begin to see themselves differently, to be able to see that they were created for more and to go farther and to be more, because God has something special in mind when he created them, so I want people to understand that they do have value.

K-Rahn : 41:42

Absolutely, absolutely. That's key right there. Absolutely, you have value, right? We want them to know that.

Keith: 41:48

Right, exactly, well, thank you so much, k Ryan. I love you to have you come back on again and we could talk some more. We only scratched the surface of things. We could have talked about it. Yeah, yeah, I'd love to have you on again.

K-Rahn : 42:02

OK, I would love to. I would love to come back. I appreciate this platform and thanks for having me, brother.

Keith: 42:07

Have a great new year.

K-Rahn : 42:09

All right, you as well, Please everybody.