00:00:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to Checking In with Michelle Williams, a production of iHeartRadio and The Black Effect. Hello, everyone, welcome to another amazing episode of Checking In, where we are checking in with all things mental health, your finances, and just everything. And I'm really excited about today's episode because I've learned a lot in just the sample of this book, and it has helped me tremendously. I might talk about it a little bit, but it's not about me. It is truly about this amazing guest, Cornelius Lindsay, husband, father, entrepreneur, clarity coach. Well ask him what that means as well, and author of the book I don't care the freedom of letting go haling from Mississippi, but living in Come on, living in the quiet suburbs of Los Angeles, California, y'all, come on, come on in and welcome Cornelius Lindsay.
00:01:10
Speaker 2: Yo, I appreciate that. I love that from this you took me all the way back to birth.
00:01:16
Speaker 1: Come on, Mississippi. Now, how did you end up? Just just give us a small taste, just a little blurb. You in Mississippi, was in Georgia, yep.
00:01:25
Speaker 2: Born in Mississippi, moved to Georgia when I was thirteen started high school there, big culture shock. I went from you know, country country, backwoods, Mississippi small town to to south South Atlanta, Riverdale, Lake Cole and that was I mean, you know, I went. I went from Tommy Hill figure the noug if you buck you.
00:01:49
Speaker 1: Know, wait Many Hill figure in Mississippi.
00:01:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, Tommy Hill Tommy Hill figure was huge. If you had like it was like it was Tommy Hill figure. And I don't know if you remember isoid yep.
00:02:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, you get that at like stores like you know them fancy department stores, herds and all. And then if you was lucky, it would be at TJ Max Yep. Yeah, absolutely absolutely, So I'm excited y'all are based in California now, so again from Mississippi, the Atlanta, Georgia area all the way to California.
00:02:38
Speaker 3: But you have found.
00:02:39
Speaker 1: Yourself writing a book called I Don't Care The Freedom of letting Them. Now, when people see these words in big yellow letters, it can almost I was like, I don't care, but shouldn't you care?
00:02:57
Speaker 3: Right?
00:02:58
Speaker 1: I want to dive right in. In the first few I think paragraphs of your book, you said that caring cost.
00:03:07
Speaker 2: You hm.
00:03:10
Speaker 1: Rod's pretty heavy, right. What did you mean when you said caring cost you?
00:03:20
Speaker 2: Uh? You know we hear, we hear all the time, we say all the time, I don't care. Yes, the problem is we don't know what it means. And just like that same, that same dichotomy you found yourself in in that moment of being like I see the title, But are I supposed to care? I was supposed to care about something and then you know, like with my with my Christian faith, the Bible actually cared, actually says in one Peter, he says to Casher, cares on God, he said, because he cares for you. But even even in in in practical terms, what does that mean? What does that look like?
00:03:55
Speaker 3: So?
00:03:55
Speaker 2: Are you saying I shouldn't care about going to work? Are you saying I shouldn't care about being in a relationship? I want to be married?
00:04:02
Speaker 1: Like?
00:04:03
Speaker 2: What are like? What? What are what? Are you honestly saying? So when I say caring caring too much or killed me? When I when I talked about that, that was me saying that I didn't know what to cast off. So I cared about what people thought about me. I cared about being the good boy. That's how I grew up. Everybody said I was a good boy. You was a good boy. I said, yes, ma'am, oh ma'am. I got good grades, and I was paying attention and I was obedient. I was in the four h club, and I was a good boy. And then I became you know, I got I got saved. I became the man of God. And you come the man of God. You pray, you pray for an hour, and you do this. And so I had these labels that were placed on me that it was like I had to live up to them, and caring what everybody thought about me, caring what you know about what what I was going to do next in my life. Like all that care, it weighed down to the point where it robbed me of my individuality and it me of being who I believe, you know, God really wanted me to be.
00:05:03
Speaker 3: Mm hmmm, who did you write this book for?
00:05:08
Speaker 1: Uh?
00:05:09
Speaker 2: So? I wrote it. I wrote the book. It's probably a horrible, horrible answer, but I'm gonna I'm gonna say it anyway.
00:05:20
Speaker 1: Not horrible.
00:05:23
Speaker 2: I wrote. I wrote every every book I've written, including this. I wrote it for myself. I wrote it for myself. But I wrote it for the person in mind who has felt like they're the black sheep, the lone wolf, the misunderstood, the forgotten, the ignored, the castaway. I wrote it for those people who are tired of pretending, tired of hiding, tired of code switching. UH. I wrote it for those people who they have a life that they want to live outside of what their parents tell them, outside of what UH their mentor is trying to pigeonhole them into. They have business they want to start, but they won't because they're afraid of making sure everything is perfect. I wrote it. I wrote it for those people who are in the marriage, for the for that married couple who is considering getting a divorce without realizing that before they burn the whole bridge, and before they destroy the whole thing, there's only maybe a couple of things they need to change to have the best marriage and best family of their life. So I wrote it with those individuals in mind. And that's the reason why throughout the book you'll see so many examples that I give. Where I talk about my wife and I almost divorcing, I'll talk about, you know, stepping away from from from pastoral ministry. I talk about my own story so that people have an understanding and they know, Okay, this is real. And now because I've seen this, I can I can I can grow, and I can move away.
00:06:59
Speaker 1: To thank you for sharing who you wrote this book for. When you said that when you stepped away from pastoring, I can imagine that a lot of people's identities are wrapped up in being a pastor. So when you say you stepped away, did you already have the I don't care mentality or was it like this is life or death? And I'm not saying that because I already know the answer, because I don't.
00:07:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, the crazy thing is I tried to step away many years before that. I tried to hand the church over to to to my executive pastor or my associate pastor many years before that. And the problem is the church just didn't want it. They wouldn't live. They were like, nope, my pastor, I like when you preach, when they come, I don't like it. So you felt honest, and you I she stood up. We had we had three services at the time. During the first, during the first second, going to the second service, I told I told my sister, I said, hey, get everybody, get all the leaders in line. Put them up in the in the sanctuary. Let me have a conversation with them. They didn't know what was going to talk about. I just threw it on him. I said, Hey, I just want to let you know today I'm gonna step down as as senior pastor. I'm gonna let blah blah blah, and he's gonna do it. And they and want to Grocer raise her hands. She said, nah, uh no, you ain't, because I don't.
00:08:27
Speaker 1: Know how you thought you was just gonna come up in here and say you was just gonna let us go.
00:08:33
Speaker 2: Right, And so I felt the tug even then, like well I can't. I can't. I can't abandon them. I can't just leave them. Yeah. But during most of that time, I suffered from depression and suicidal ideation. I was I was encouraging everybody on Sunday morning, and I would go home fully discouraged. I would I felt so empty most of the time. I felt like I was helping everybody else and there was nobody there to help me. And I mean everybody was pulling on me, everybody needed something from me. And then when people got finished with me, they just threw me away. They left the church, they walked away. They talked about me, they did. They would talk about every bad thing. They never talked about any good thing. And I was so depressed. December. December of twenty nineteen was a day I'll never forget it. I mean, I took the gun out, I was getting ready to use it, and my daughter saved my life. One thirty in the morning. My youngest son was actually sleep in my bed, my wife was sleeping. I pulled the gun out from right next to the night stand, right next to me. I'm crying that my daughter. I see her silhouette, her shadow, and I look and I say Taylor, and she's rubbing her eyes. She said, Daddy, She said, Daddy, can I lay with you? And I was like, oh yeah, baby, And I'm like, hold on one second. I had to take the gun off of I put the safety back on, put it back into the case, put it back into the thing. And I realized in that moment, I'm not good, I'm not healthy. Yeah, And so it was killing me. And I was still trying to I was still trying to stay in something that was that was taking me out. Yeah, promised myself, especially during COVID when everything's shut down. I was like, you know what, I'm done.
00:10:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, So at the time, did you have therapists, did you do sabbaticals? Did you do anything to counter burnout? Which burnout it was about? I literally have a question about burnout. But we're already here, so I'll get to it after this. But I'm only saying this because a lot of people. You're probably in certain places in the workplace, you're probably a public figure. You're probably the son or daughter and of someone, and you feel like you have to stay in something you don't want to, but you keep it to yourself because you're performing. You have a mask on, but really on the inside, you are crumbling.
00:11:08
Speaker 3: You are dying, even though you.
00:11:11
Speaker 1: Haven't physically left us yet. As a pastor, was that frowned upon or how are you not able to, I guess get the help you needed?
00:11:24
Speaker 2: I mean, yes, frowned upon? I mean you know, who wants? Who wants to know? I mean, and you know, now it's probably become a little bit more you know, a little bit more acceptable. But who wants who wants to know? Who wants to know that their pastor is going to get therapy? You know, it's almost like it's almost like you don't you don't want to hear about you don't want to hear about Superman needing help.
00:11:45
Speaker 1: Okay, I see absolutely, yeah, you know, even though we'll we'll say all day well, I mean, Superman is just Clark Kent.
00:11:52
Speaker 2: We'll say all day, well, you know my pastor is human. Well, he's human. He's human until he makes a human kill idea, and he's no longer human anymore. It is now he's the leader.
00:12:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, we select what we want him to be human with. Oh, him and his wife are having a baby. Oh he lost his mom. But the inner the inner stuff, Oh no, It's almost like we haven't learned how to even be vulnerable with ourselves and our loved ones, let alone when somebody else's humanity, you know, is a is you know.
00:12:28
Speaker 3: At risk.
00:12:33
Speaker 1: Some of our burnout is literally caring what people think, especially when it comes to you having to make a decision.
00:12:39
Speaker 3: For you and your well being.
00:12:43
Speaker 1: I've been talking to people about burnout because I have been feeling burnt out, like you know, on the stage for a whole year and haven't really taken.
00:12:54
Speaker 3: A real break.
00:12:56
Speaker 1: But like, well, you know, you have the name you have, the you have that that, and it's like you really just want to say I'm tired, but you're scared of looking like, uh, maybe a liability or we can't depend on you. You knew what this you knew what this job entailed when you signed up for it.
00:13:17
Speaker 2: That's what I tell you. You know what this when when it when it comes to burnout, it is we're constantly putting so much out than what's going in. And I had to get into a rhythm of rest. I had to get into a replenishment cycle, recognizing that this is what is important to me. Actually, and I write about this in the book. I had a guy who I saw in target. He walked up to me. He was yeah, he walked up and he said he was upset, and he said, you know, you abandon us. This is after I I separated from pastoring, and said you abandon us. And I wanted so bad to just kind of go off in that moment, but I just I stopped and I looked at him and full honesty, and I said, you know what, you don't realize it, but it was killing me. And the thing you don't you also don't realize, is that y'all leave the church all the time. Y'all will leave it and go to another church down the street. Y'all get a new friend and a heartbeat, but you don't take any time to consider or even be compassionate enough to consider, well, how was how was he doing?
00:14:24
Speaker 3: Yeah?
00:14:24
Speaker 2: How is he? And so when you talk about that burnout piece, it's like you you become so enthralled with the idea of I need to be this for somebody else. It is a it is a legit superhero complex. All that a way recognize that my humanity was a lot more important than this idea that people needed me, and I couldn't even. I couldn't even. At one point I said, well, you know, I want to do this because my family needs me and wish they did. But you know the thing that ticked me off the most, you asked me about this with therapists and stuff. My therapist looked at me and he asked me a question, Michelle that I want I want it so bad to throw the pillow at him. He said no, he said, Cornelius. He said, what do you like to do for fun? And it angered me because I thought, I don't know, I'm not supposed to have fun. I'm only supposed to be productive. I'm supposed to work. I'm supposed to produce. I self published twelve books in six years. That that's that's what I'm supposed to do. I'm I'm hosting. I'm hosting, you know, conferences almost once a quarter. I'm supposed to do this. I have businesses on the side. I'm this is fun. I'm not supposed to have fun. And what he what he did in that moment was he started to chip away at that superhero wall that I was creating of trying to trying to build my value off of my performance. Yes, sir, I had to get away from it, and so I figured, I'm not going to burn out anymore for these negroes. I'm leaving.
00:16:11
Speaker 1: Yes me, you want to talk about the freedom of letting go. There is freedom in letting go, letting go of titles and expectations. It does not mean you don't care. It really is a thing of y'all. How can I go on, like you said, when I am pouring out more than I am receiving. Now, was there an expectation to receive from people? Or did you eventually learn yet? I got to do this, I have to pour back into me or God as well.
00:16:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, I did get to the point I think. I think, I think people will teach you that they just don't have it to give, and you have to think. You know, the church is widely considered as a as you know, similar to that of the hospital. Yeah, you know, you don't really expect for a sick patient to come in and be able to be able to you know, prescribe medicine to the doctor. So because we have created that warped system and that warped cycle, it becomes extremely difficult too for anybody to assume that, you know, they're supposed to give back to me, and so they they didn't. And that part, that part was was challenging. And that's and that's also where in the book where I criticize the system that I believe that we've created in church. Uh, that that ignores humanity, that ignores true community because it's filled with production.
00:17:52
Speaker 3: Uh.
00:17:52
Speaker 2: And so we have we have a lot of these different things that kind of that kind of nullifies the idea that you are you are in a safe environment where you can be fed and other people. I had people and people would say to me they would say, well, you're the pastor. You need a pastor, Michelle. I would get a pastor. And I remember there was one pastor who I said, look, I called him and I talked to him for about fifteen minutes and I was talking to tell him how depressed I was. When I got finished, he paused and he said, man, that really sounds horrible. He said, do you mind helping me grow my social media? What? Okay? All right? Well there we go, or or you know, I go to another pastor and I said, I just need mentorship. I need somebody who's there. I just need somebody I could talk to. And it's like, well, in order for you to be part of this, you know, you have to join my cohort and it'll be this amount of month, or in order for you to do this, you have to do this. Or you know a pastor who came to me and he said, you know, you're my spiritual son. He actually called me spiritual son. And I was like, okay, well this is great. Why have somebody I could talk to? And then I call, I call, I text, I text, and then his wife says, oh, you know, unfortunately he doesn't he doesn't know how to be a good father. And I already have father issues. So it's hard when you come to me and you say that I'm the song when you don't know how to be a father. So it's just like, well, why even come to me. I already have daddy issues, and so I don't I don't need to add to this. And so even there where they say, well you need a pastor, well I get a pastor. And it's sad because I had to pay for a therapist because I couldn't find anybody else to confide in. I had to pay for a professional just because I didn't have anybody else that can fight in. Because as a in my line of work in ministry, I would I would love to be able to say that we could preachers could talk to each other, but most preachers are lonely because, if I'm honest, most of them are in competition with themselves and with the other churches down the street. So it's more competition in ministry than there is the NFL.
00:20:07
Speaker 1: Heck in the music industry, like can you get it? Because so many people, by the way, really they really are doing music for the art of it. If the if the awards and accolades come yes, I mean you're doing for the art and for the coin, but there is no I actually noticed, and I'm and I hate to have said this, but there was a time I was walking through something.
00:20:33
Speaker 3: I was like, man, it's safer over here in the club.
00:20:37
Speaker 2: Mmmm.
00:20:39
Speaker 1: Then it is where I'm supposed to get my cup fields, you know, as far as with people of faith, it's safer over here.
00:20:49
Speaker 3: You know, we're not in competition.
00:20:50
Speaker 1: It's come on over our girl.
00:20:52
Speaker 3: Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on. We're good. We got you, you know.
00:20:56
Speaker 1: But I've learned to to to to balance all of that, and I am sorry that that happened to you. I have to have more thoughts too.
00:21:09
Speaker 2: About that gets exactly what you're what you're saying too. I mean, I write in a book about about me starting alcoholics anonymous in twenty twenty three. Uh, And that was mostly because twenty two, twenty thirty two, so my mom shared with me that the man who raised me wasn't my father. And so I'm thirty six years old and I'm just now figuring out that this man who I've always thought was my dad wasn't. And so you know, the that day I decided I got to kick this habit. So I started AA, and alcoholics anonymous became.
00:21:43
Speaker 1: Uh.
00:21:44
Speaker 2: That was actually because I was already in a phase of deconstruction. Yeah, but A became the place where my faith in Jesus Christ and my faith my faith in God was fortified. I was around, I saw humanity for the first and I was loved despite any of my issues. I was by a group of strangers, by a group of men who had no shame but were full of compassion and forgiveness, and we learned about these principles that were true to the scripture. So I definitely hear when you say, you know the club and then the churches. It's a very real thing in learning how to balance that. It's extremely important.
00:22:26
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Now I will have to now T T Michelle, do have to say, I have found some people in church and ministries that, seriously, when you know you want to talk about I feel like some of them are like Jesus's first cousin. I can say and I can name names of who I felt that I can rock with I want to go back to. And by the way, there's so much to discuss here when you talk about you just discovered who your father is. And there are so many people here walking through that. What has that done to you as it relates to I don't care.
00:23:18
Speaker 2: It's tough because now I'm I am really taking in my own message. I write it. I write in a book about not burning not burning down your life, and so upon finding out about it, I was ready to burn my life down. I was ready to just forget it all, walk away, Like how could you lie to me for thirty six years? Then when I met my when I met my father, it was like, you know, how could you? How could you know I exist? How could you watch me on social media? How could you? It's like how.
00:23:52
Speaker 3: How?
00:23:54
Speaker 2: And and not say anything? Like not not saying anything? I will I'm so angry to the point where now I'm I write about in the book about grief and about ashes, Yes, talk about how ashes become. Ashes can be two things. It can either be a grave or a garden. And so I am in the process right now of grieving the relationship with my father that I will never have. Jesus, And That's where I'm at right now.
00:24:28
Speaker 1: In the print, was that the part where you met a man whose house had just burned down?
00:24:33
Speaker 2: Yes?
00:24:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, and his perspective blew you away where you were like, I'm sorry for your loss, and he was like, what are you talking about?
00:24:41
Speaker 2: Yep?
00:24:42
Speaker 1: I was.
00:24:42
Speaker 2: I was sitting there on the sauna and a guy who was sitting there and he asked me, while I was there, the next one he was there and he said yeah, he said, my house is burned down, and I said.
00:24:51
Speaker 3: You're in asauna.
00:24:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was in asauna and I was like. I looked at him and I said. My first reaction was I'm so sorry. And he said why are you sorry? And I said, well, your house burned down. I said that's that's devastating, and he said, well that's one way you can look at it. He said, but I see it as an opportunity. And we had this whole conversation about what he was planning to build. And I looked at him. I said, so you lost everything? He said, my wife and I came here with He said, we close it. We bought he said, clothes, We bought a target. And he was like, he said, but now I get a chance to have a whole new wardrobe. He said, I really.
00:25:29
Speaker 1: Who was his life coach, right? You know? Was he a believer?
00:25:35
Speaker 2: He wasn't. He wasn't he's a Buddhist. He wasn't. He wasn't a believer, wasn't a believer at all. I shared my face with him, he is h his Buddhist and he was like, you know, he said, he's like yeah, he said, he said, uh, he said something. Oh man, I won't get exact right, but he said he said my house. He said, our house burned down. He said, but we didn't burn with it.
00:26:02
Speaker 1: Now, wait a minute, believer or not. I've run through this door, through the door.
00:26:08
Speaker 2: Yep.
00:26:09
Speaker 1: Oh, my house burned down, but we did not burn with it. Yeah, you don't have to be a believer Buddhist, Catholic, Muslim like that could be universal right now.
00:26:26
Speaker 3: I also want to.
00:26:27
Speaker 1: Go back to what part of you you were like between sixteen and nineteen.
00:26:32
Speaker 3: I think when.
00:26:35
Speaker 1: You said I wrote, I said, you really didn't care when you asked a professor if they had a business and that professor said no, and you said, well, how can you teach me about entrepreneurship? Oh yeah, as they kicked you out.
00:26:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was. I was. I was a sophomore at the University of Georgia. I was taking a intro to Entrepreneurship, intro business whatever, this class. And I walked in, I put my bag down, I did what I normally did. I walked up. I would always greet my professors, and so I asked the professor. I said, I said, have you ever have you ever started or you ever ran a business before? And he said no, And so I said, how can you teach me how to do something you've never done? And he said, cordeli the stuff and go out of my class. And I got out. I left his class, and I dropped out of college because in my mind, I said, there's no way that I'm going to sit here and pay hundreds of dollars for a book that was written by a man who hasn't even done what I want to do. Like I am, Michelle, I'm all for taking constructive criticism, but I refuse to take constructive criticism from someone who hasn't constructed anything.
00:27:44
Speaker 1: Has not constructed nothing that's so good, good, absolutely absolutely, and going on to even that. I love how you differentiate caring what a close friend or mentor things versus someone unfamiliar with your journey, Right, those are your work, so not only that you cannot I cannot take constructive criticism unless.
00:28:08
Speaker 3: You like was my granny.
00:28:10
Speaker 1: Somehow grannies just be having wisdom about black eyed peas to business. I don't know how if you ain't my granny, I don't want to hear it, right, because we do hear you can't take Even my own sister I meant I said something like that to her one year. She said, that's not all the way true. And some older people somehow have a wisdom even though they ain't building nothing but right.
00:28:41
Speaker 2: I think, I think, I think that the wisdom. I think that wisdom comes raight from God, which is why I talk about caring about if this hurts as a mentor. This person is somebody who you know, arguably you trust. We're trusting that God will give them wisdom. Yeah, specifically from a teacher. He's not. He's not. I don't. I'm not paying to be here in the college to get wisdom. I'm paying to get your knowledge and and and unfortunately, even you.
00:29:08
Speaker 1: Say that sounds so smart mouth, but it's fact. It's true, y'all. I promise y'all, he's not being a smart butt.
00:29:16
Speaker 3: It's fat did your.
00:29:19
Speaker 1: Parents what did you do with it? Like? Come on now, like, no, it's he's not being it's it's fact.
00:29:26
Speaker 3: It's fact.
00:29:28
Speaker 1: It's taking me thirty minutes to even get get to more questions about your book because just it's just been so rich just all around.
00:29:37
Speaker 3: I think the.
00:29:40
Speaker 1: What the meat and spirit of your book is about has been pretty much in this entire conversation. So I do want to to encourage everyone to get his book. I don't care because the freedom of letting go, and I have the question is not caring?
00:29:56
Speaker 3: Is there an art to caring?
00:29:58
Speaker 1: Some people say there is an art to communitytion, like is there an art to letting go? I also want to say too more about y'all. These are just so many things that have gone on in his book that he discusses of the good things that have happened in his life that have got him to this place, and some not so good things that can almost get you callous into a place where you don't care in the most negative way. And it's a scary time when people can say what they want to say about you online and it wrecks your reputation. You talk about how the closest.
00:30:35
Speaker 3: People to you left.
00:30:37
Speaker 1: You didn't ask for clarity, just bounced, you are still thriving today and also being comfortable with being misunderstood. There's so many highlights that I took off of this book because I wanted to make sure that I was like, can you get to a place where you say I don't care and just tell everybody to fall? You know what I mean? And I don't think that that's a life when you really look at it.
00:31:09
Speaker 3: None of us want to live right.
00:31:11
Speaker 2: And I'll say this, and the book is about selective care. That's what I tell people that I don't care. Mentality is about selective care. I'm not telling people not to care. I'm telling people to choose what they truly care about. And the way I give it to you is and you'll see it throughout the book. I am really big as a coach when I sit down when I talk to professionals, when I coach businesses, I always ask them three things. What is your vision? Where are you going? What is your mission? How are you going to get there? But the last one is important to the I don't care mentality, And what are your values? Because if you can't tell me what you stand for, then that means you'll fall for anything. The reason why it's so difficult for us to tell people know is because we don't know our values. We talk a great deal about our boundaries, Well, this is my boundary. Well we base boundaries off of values. I based off of my values. So if I have a value, then now I can base the rule off of it. So I tell people it's a lot easier for you to take in the itn' care mentality when you identify your values. Like for me and my wife, one of our values is hospitality without pretension. We like to be hospitable, we like to sit with people at the table without pretension or whatever. This suffit piety. So because of that, we're able to not care that you know about other things. Because this is this is a value of ours, we're able to say no to things that that you know. We can say no to other dinner parties that don't meet that same value because it's not it's not hospitable. It's a dinner party, but it's very pretentious, it's everything else, so we can say no to it. When you adding to find your values, what's important to you, it's a lot easier for you to know what to care about and what to cast away.
00:33:05
Speaker 1: Y'all. I promise, y'all, this was the last thing I was gonna say what to care about. There's something in his book that I that suck out to me. It says entitlement dies when you care about the right things. Now what Instagram says you should want mansions, followers, fancy cars, But what likes you up? He says, For me, it was my marriage and family. I almost lost it. Fixing it meant raw conversations, couple's therapy, and showing up every day even when it hurts.
00:33:33
Speaker 3: You say, what's your thing? A dream you buried? Y'all?
00:33:38
Speaker 1: How many dreams have y'all buried? And you're not working towards a friend you've ghosted? You said, figure it out and pour your heart into it. That's what you care about, Cornelius. That's a may z.
00:33:59
Speaker 3: And I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
00:34:01
Speaker 1: I feel like you've had to go through a lot to even be able to write that right, right right, Figure it out and pour your heart into it. Thank you so much for checking in with us today, y'all. There, I guess this book it's not about I don't care in the most tempered, tantrum type of way. He's actually giving us steps and tools, and if I'm not mistaken, you do something that's called clarity coaching.
00:34:37
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:34:39
Speaker 1: Okay, So if someone is listening and you feel like you need a lot a little more clarity, not only on what we were talking about. You can get more clarity if you go and read the whole entire book. I don't care the freedom of letting go. What platforms is it available?
00:34:52
Speaker 2: To get it on Amazon? It's an audible, I have evil hard copy soft copy. You get it on Barnesandnoble dot com. You can also check out my website queneinslndsay dot com.
00:35:02
Speaker 1: Amazing clarity coaching. I've heard of life coaching, but some of us have not heard of clarity coaching.
00:35:10
Speaker 3: And then I can let you go.
00:35:11
Speaker 1: Because y'all, I want y'all to get this in as we say, get it in your spirit.
00:35:15
Speaker 3: Tell us about clarity coaching.
00:35:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, so very simple. There are areas of your life where you're confused. Clarity is enlightenment. Once you get Once you get enlightened, then you can be confident. So when you when you're like a married couple, they're like, well, I think we should get a divorce. Well, there could be maybe one or two things that we can resolve. Once we resolve those two things, you get clarity about it, You get confidence in your marriage again. You're in a transition as a pastor, as a leader. You want to exit the music industry. Okay, well let's get some clarity on where you're going, what's the vision, what's the mission, where your values? And we can then you can get some confidence and moving forward. So I help people to find clarity so they can move forward with confidence.
00:35:54
Speaker 1: Amazing, All right, anytime, anytime, you are more, more more than welcome. There's so many things that we can continue to talk about. And I'm grateful for you today, and y'all give it up for Cornelius Lindsay. Checking In with Michelle Williams is a production of iHeartRadio and The Black Effect. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Checking In with Michelle Williams, a production of iHeartRadio and The Black Effect. Hello, everyone, welcome to another amazing episode of Checking In, where we are checking in with all things mental health, your finances, and just everything. And I'm really excited about today's episode because I've learned a lot in just the sample of this book, and it has helped me tremendously. I might talk about it a little bit, but it's not about me. It is truly about this amazing guest, Cornelius Lindsay, husband, father, entrepreneur, clarity coach. Well ask him what that means as well, and author of the book I don't care the freedom of letting go haling from Mississippi, but living in Come on, living in the quiet suburbs of Los Angeles, California, y'all, come on, come on in and welcome Cornelius Lindsay.
00:01:10
Speaker 2: Yo, I appreciate that. I love that from this you took me all the way back to birth.
00:01:16
Speaker 1: Come on, Mississippi. Now, how did you end up? Just just give us a small taste, just a little blurb. You in Mississippi, was in Georgia, yep.
00:01:25
Speaker 2: Born in Mississippi, moved to Georgia when I was thirteen started high school there, big culture shock. I went from you know, country country, backwoods, Mississippi small town to to south South Atlanta, Riverdale, Lake Cole and that was I mean, you know, I went. I went from Tommy Hill figure the noug if you buck you.
00:01:49
Speaker 1: Know, wait Many Hill figure in Mississippi.
00:01:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, Tommy Hill Tommy Hill figure was huge. If you had like it was like it was Tommy Hill figure. And I don't know if you remember isoid yep.
00:02:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, you get that at like stores like you know them fancy department stores, herds and all. And then if you was lucky, it would be at TJ Max Yep. Yeah, absolutely absolutely, So I'm excited y'all are based in California now, so again from Mississippi, the Atlanta, Georgia area all the way to California.
00:02:38
Speaker 3: But you have found.
00:02:39
Speaker 1: Yourself writing a book called I Don't Care The Freedom of letting Them. Now, when people see these words in big yellow letters, it can almost I was like, I don't care, but shouldn't you care?
00:02:57
Speaker 3: Right?
00:02:58
Speaker 1: I want to dive right in. In the first few I think paragraphs of your book, you said that caring cost.
00:03:07
Speaker 2: You hm.
00:03:10
Speaker 1: Rod's pretty heavy, right. What did you mean when you said caring cost you?
00:03:20
Speaker 2: Uh? You know we hear, we hear all the time, we say all the time, I don't care. Yes, the problem is we don't know what it means. And just like that same, that same dichotomy you found yourself in in that moment of being like I see the title, But are I supposed to care? I was supposed to care about something and then you know, like with my with my Christian faith, the Bible actually cared, actually says in one Peter, he says to Casher, cares on God, he said, because he cares for you. But even even in in in practical terms, what does that mean? What does that look like?
00:03:55
Speaker 3: So?
00:03:55
Speaker 2: Are you saying I shouldn't care about going to work? Are you saying I shouldn't care about being in a relationship? I want to be married?
00:04:02
Speaker 1: Like?
00:04:03
Speaker 2: What are like? What? What are what? Are you honestly saying? So when I say caring caring too much or killed me? When I when I talked about that, that was me saying that I didn't know what to cast off. So I cared about what people thought about me. I cared about being the good boy. That's how I grew up. Everybody said I was a good boy. You was a good boy. I said, yes, ma'am, oh ma'am. I got good grades, and I was paying attention and I was obedient. I was in the four h club, and I was a good boy. And then I became you know, I got I got saved. I became the man of God. And you come the man of God. You pray, you pray for an hour, and you do this. And so I had these labels that were placed on me that it was like I had to live up to them, and caring what everybody thought about me, caring what you know about what what I was going to do next in my life. Like all that care, it weighed down to the point where it robbed me of my individuality and it me of being who I believe, you know, God really wanted me to be.
00:05:03
Speaker 3: Mm hmmm, who did you write this book for?
00:05:08
Speaker 1: Uh?
00:05:09
Speaker 2: So? I wrote it. I wrote the book. It's probably a horrible, horrible answer, but I'm gonna I'm gonna say it anyway.
00:05:20
Speaker 1: Not horrible.
00:05:23
Speaker 2: I wrote. I wrote every every book I've written, including this. I wrote it for myself. I wrote it for myself. But I wrote it for the person in mind who has felt like they're the black sheep, the lone wolf, the misunderstood, the forgotten, the ignored, the castaway. I wrote it for those people who are tired of pretending, tired of hiding, tired of code switching. UH. I wrote it for those people who they have a life that they want to live outside of what their parents tell them, outside of what UH their mentor is trying to pigeonhole them into. They have business they want to start, but they won't because they're afraid of making sure everything is perfect. I wrote it. I wrote it for those people who are in the marriage, for the for that married couple who is considering getting a divorce without realizing that before they burn the whole bridge, and before they destroy the whole thing, there's only maybe a couple of things they need to change to have the best marriage and best family of their life. So I wrote it with those individuals in mind. And that's the reason why throughout the book you'll see so many examples that I give. Where I talk about my wife and I almost divorcing, I'll talk about, you know, stepping away from from from pastoral ministry. I talk about my own story so that people have an understanding and they know, Okay, this is real. And now because I've seen this, I can I can I can grow, and I can move away.
00:06:59
Speaker 1: To thank you for sharing who you wrote this book for. When you said that when you stepped away from pastoring, I can imagine that a lot of people's identities are wrapped up in being a pastor. So when you say you stepped away, did you already have the I don't care mentality or was it like this is life or death? And I'm not saying that because I already know the answer, because I don't.
00:07:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, the crazy thing is I tried to step away many years before that. I tried to hand the church over to to to my executive pastor or my associate pastor many years before that. And the problem is the church just didn't want it. They wouldn't live. They were like, nope, my pastor, I like when you preach, when they come, I don't like it. So you felt honest, and you I she stood up. We had we had three services at the time. During the first, during the first second, going to the second service, I told I told my sister, I said, hey, get everybody, get all the leaders in line. Put them up in the in the sanctuary. Let me have a conversation with them. They didn't know what was going to talk about. I just threw it on him. I said, Hey, I just want to let you know today I'm gonna step down as as senior pastor. I'm gonna let blah blah blah, and he's gonna do it. And they and want to Grocer raise her hands. She said, nah, uh no, you ain't, because I don't.
00:08:27
Speaker 1: Know how you thought you was just gonna come up in here and say you was just gonna let us go.
00:08:33
Speaker 2: Right, And so I felt the tug even then, like well I can't. I can't. I can't abandon them. I can't just leave them. Yeah. But during most of that time, I suffered from depression and suicidal ideation. I was I was encouraging everybody on Sunday morning, and I would go home fully discouraged. I would I felt so empty most of the time. I felt like I was helping everybody else and there was nobody there to help me. And I mean everybody was pulling on me, everybody needed something from me. And then when people got finished with me, they just threw me away. They left the church, they walked away. They talked about me, they did. They would talk about every bad thing. They never talked about any good thing. And I was so depressed. December. December of twenty nineteen was a day I'll never forget it. I mean, I took the gun out, I was getting ready to use it, and my daughter saved my life. One thirty in the morning. My youngest son was actually sleep in my bed, my wife was sleeping. I pulled the gun out from right next to the night stand, right next to me. I'm crying that my daughter. I see her silhouette, her shadow, and I look and I say Taylor, and she's rubbing her eyes. She said, Daddy, She said, Daddy, can I lay with you? And I was like, oh yeah, baby, And I'm like, hold on one second. I had to take the gun off of I put the safety back on, put it back into the case, put it back into the thing. And I realized in that moment, I'm not good, I'm not healthy. Yeah, And so it was killing me. And I was still trying to I was still trying to stay in something that was that was taking me out. Yeah, promised myself, especially during COVID when everything's shut down. I was like, you know what, I'm done.
00:10:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, So at the time, did you have therapists, did you do sabbaticals? Did you do anything to counter burnout? Which burnout it was about? I literally have a question about burnout. But we're already here, so I'll get to it after this. But I'm only saying this because a lot of people. You're probably in certain places in the workplace, you're probably a public figure. You're probably the son or daughter and of someone, and you feel like you have to stay in something you don't want to, but you keep it to yourself because you're performing. You have a mask on, but really on the inside, you are crumbling.
00:11:08
Speaker 3: You are dying, even though you.
00:11:11
Speaker 1: Haven't physically left us yet. As a pastor, was that frowned upon or how are you not able to, I guess get the help you needed?
00:11:24
Speaker 2: I mean, yes, frowned upon? I mean you know, who wants? Who wants to know? I mean, and you know, now it's probably become a little bit more you know, a little bit more acceptable. But who wants who wants to know? Who wants to know that their pastor is going to get therapy? You know, it's almost like it's almost like you don't you don't want to hear about you don't want to hear about Superman needing help.
00:11:45
Speaker 1: Okay, I see absolutely, yeah, you know, even though we'll we'll say all day well, I mean, Superman is just Clark Kent.
00:11:52
Speaker 2: We'll say all day, well, you know my pastor is human. Well, he's human. He's human until he makes a human kill idea, and he's no longer human anymore. It is now he's the leader.
00:12:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, we select what we want him to be human with. Oh, him and his wife are having a baby. Oh he lost his mom. But the inner the inner stuff, Oh no, It's almost like we haven't learned how to even be vulnerable with ourselves and our loved ones, let alone when somebody else's humanity, you know, is a is you know.
00:12:28
Speaker 3: At risk.
00:12:33
Speaker 1: Some of our burnout is literally caring what people think, especially when it comes to you having to make a decision.
00:12:39
Speaker 3: For you and your well being.
00:12:43
Speaker 1: I've been talking to people about burnout because I have been feeling burnt out, like you know, on the stage for a whole year and haven't really taken.
00:12:54
Speaker 3: A real break.
00:12:56
Speaker 1: But like, well, you know, you have the name you have, the you have that that, and it's like you really just want to say I'm tired, but you're scared of looking like, uh, maybe a liability or we can't depend on you. You knew what this you knew what this job entailed when you signed up for it.
00:13:17
Speaker 2: That's what I tell you. You know what this when when it when it comes to burnout, it is we're constantly putting so much out than what's going in. And I had to get into a rhythm of rest. I had to get into a replenishment cycle, recognizing that this is what is important to me. Actually, and I write about this in the book. I had a guy who I saw in target. He walked up to me. He was yeah, he walked up and he said he was upset, and he said, you know, you abandon us. This is after I I separated from pastoring, and said you abandon us. And I wanted so bad to just kind of go off in that moment, but I just I stopped and I looked at him and full honesty, and I said, you know what, you don't realize it, but it was killing me. And the thing you don't you also don't realize, is that y'all leave the church all the time. Y'all will leave it and go to another church down the street. Y'all get a new friend and a heartbeat, but you don't take any time to consider or even be compassionate enough to consider, well, how was how was he doing?
00:14:24
Speaker 3: Yeah?
00:14:24
Speaker 2: How is he? And so when you talk about that burnout piece, it's like you you become so enthralled with the idea of I need to be this for somebody else. It is a it is a legit superhero complex. All that a way recognize that my humanity was a lot more important than this idea that people needed me, and I couldn't even. I couldn't even. At one point I said, well, you know, I want to do this because my family needs me and wish they did. But you know the thing that ticked me off the most, you asked me about this with therapists and stuff. My therapist looked at me and he asked me a question, Michelle that I want I want it so bad to throw the pillow at him. He said no, he said, Cornelius. He said, what do you like to do for fun? And it angered me because I thought, I don't know, I'm not supposed to have fun. I'm only supposed to be productive. I'm supposed to work. I'm supposed to produce. I self published twelve books in six years. That that's that's what I'm supposed to do. I'm I'm hosting. I'm hosting, you know, conferences almost once a quarter. I'm supposed to do this. I have businesses on the side. I'm this is fun. I'm not supposed to have fun. And what he what he did in that moment was he started to chip away at that superhero wall that I was creating of trying to trying to build my value off of my performance. Yes, sir, I had to get away from it, and so I figured, I'm not going to burn out anymore for these negroes. I'm leaving.
00:16:11
Speaker 1: Yes me, you want to talk about the freedom of letting go. There is freedom in letting go, letting go of titles and expectations. It does not mean you don't care. It really is a thing of y'all. How can I go on, like you said, when I am pouring out more than I am receiving. Now, was there an expectation to receive from people? Or did you eventually learn yet? I got to do this, I have to pour back into me or God as well.
00:16:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, I did get to the point I think. I think, I think people will teach you that they just don't have it to give, and you have to think. You know, the church is widely considered as a as you know, similar to that of the hospital. Yeah, you know, you don't really expect for a sick patient to come in and be able to be able to you know, prescribe medicine to the doctor. So because we have created that warped system and that warped cycle, it becomes extremely difficult too for anybody to assume that, you know, they're supposed to give back to me, and so they they didn't. And that part, that part was was challenging. And that's and that's also where in the book where I criticize the system that I believe that we've created in church. Uh, that that ignores humanity, that ignores true community because it's filled with production.
00:17:52
Speaker 3: Uh.
00:17:52
Speaker 2: And so we have we have a lot of these different things that kind of that kind of nullifies the idea that you are you are in a safe environment where you can be fed and other people. I had people and people would say to me they would say, well, you're the pastor. You need a pastor, Michelle. I would get a pastor. And I remember there was one pastor who I said, look, I called him and I talked to him for about fifteen minutes and I was talking to tell him how depressed I was. When I got finished, he paused and he said, man, that really sounds horrible. He said, do you mind helping me grow my social media? What? Okay? All right? Well there we go, or or you know, I go to another pastor and I said, I just need mentorship. I need somebody who's there. I just need somebody I could talk to. And it's like, well, in order for you to be part of this, you know, you have to join my cohort and it'll be this amount of month, or in order for you to do this, you have to do this. Or you know a pastor who came to me and he said, you know, you're my spiritual son. He actually called me spiritual son. And I was like, okay, well this is great. Why have somebody I could talk to? And then I call, I call, I text, I text, and then his wife says, oh, you know, unfortunately he doesn't he doesn't know how to be a good father. And I already have father issues. So it's hard when you come to me and you say that I'm the song when you don't know how to be a father. So it's just like, well, why even come to me. I already have daddy issues, and so I don't I don't need to add to this. And so even there where they say, well you need a pastor, well I get a pastor. And it's sad because I had to pay for a therapist because I couldn't find anybody else to confide in. I had to pay for a professional just because I didn't have anybody else that can fight in. Because as a in my line of work in ministry, I would I would love to be able to say that we could preachers could talk to each other, but most preachers are lonely because, if I'm honest, most of them are in competition with themselves and with the other churches down the street. So it's more competition in ministry than there is the NFL.
00:20:07
Speaker 1: Heck in the music industry, like can you get it? Because so many people, by the way, really they really are doing music for the art of it. If the if the awards and accolades come yes, I mean you're doing for the art and for the coin, but there is no I actually noticed, and I'm and I hate to have said this, but there was a time I was walking through something.
00:20:33
Speaker 3: I was like, man, it's safer over here in the club.
00:20:37
Speaker 2: Mmmm.
00:20:39
Speaker 1: Then it is where I'm supposed to get my cup fields, you know, as far as with people of faith, it's safer over here.
00:20:49
Speaker 3: You know, we're not in competition.
00:20:50
Speaker 1: It's come on over our girl.
00:20:52
Speaker 3: Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on. We're good. We got you, you know.
00:20:56
Speaker 1: But I've learned to to to to balance all of that, and I am sorry that that happened to you. I have to have more thoughts too.
00:21:09
Speaker 2: About that gets exactly what you're what you're saying too. I mean, I write in a book about about me starting alcoholics anonymous in twenty twenty three. Uh, And that was mostly because twenty two, twenty thirty two, so my mom shared with me that the man who raised me wasn't my father. And so I'm thirty six years old and I'm just now figuring out that this man who I've always thought was my dad wasn't. And so you know, the that day I decided I got to kick this habit. So I started AA, and alcoholics anonymous became.
00:21:43
Speaker 1: Uh.
00:21:44
Speaker 2: That was actually because I was already in a phase of deconstruction. Yeah, but A became the place where my faith in Jesus Christ and my faith my faith in God was fortified. I was around, I saw humanity for the first and I was loved despite any of my issues. I was by a group of strangers, by a group of men who had no shame but were full of compassion and forgiveness, and we learned about these principles that were true to the scripture. So I definitely hear when you say, you know the club and then the churches. It's a very real thing in learning how to balance that. It's extremely important.
00:22:26
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Now I will have to now T T Michelle, do have to say, I have found some people in church and ministries that, seriously, when you know you want to talk about I feel like some of them are like Jesus's first cousin. I can say and I can name names of who I felt that I can rock with I want to go back to. And by the way, there's so much to discuss here when you talk about you just discovered who your father is. And there are so many people here walking through that. What has that done to you as it relates to I don't care.
00:23:18
Speaker 2: It's tough because now I'm I am really taking in my own message. I write it. I write in a book about not burning not burning down your life, and so upon finding out about it, I was ready to burn my life down. I was ready to just forget it all, walk away, Like how could you lie to me for thirty six years? Then when I met my when I met my father, it was like, you know, how could you? How could you know I exist? How could you watch me on social media? How could you? It's like how.
00:23:52
Speaker 3: How?
00:23:54
Speaker 2: And and not say anything? Like not not saying anything? I will I'm so angry to the point where now I'm I write about in the book about grief and about ashes, Yes, talk about how ashes become. Ashes can be two things. It can either be a grave or a garden. And so I am in the process right now of grieving the relationship with my father that I will never have. Jesus, And That's where I'm at right now.
00:24:28
Speaker 1: In the print, was that the part where you met a man whose house had just burned down?
00:24:33
Speaker 2: Yes?
00:24:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, and his perspective blew you away where you were like, I'm sorry for your loss, and he was like, what are you talking about?
00:24:41
Speaker 2: Yep?
00:24:42
Speaker 1: I was.
00:24:42
Speaker 2: I was sitting there on the sauna and a guy who was sitting there and he asked me, while I was there, the next one he was there and he said yeah, he said, my house is burned down, and I said.
00:24:51
Speaker 3: You're in asauna.
00:24:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was in asauna and I was like. I looked at him and I said. My first reaction was I'm so sorry. And he said why are you sorry? And I said, well, your house burned down. I said that's that's devastating, and he said, well that's one way you can look at it. He said, but I see it as an opportunity. And we had this whole conversation about what he was planning to build. And I looked at him. I said, so you lost everything? He said, my wife and I came here with He said, we close it. We bought he said, clothes, We bought a target. And he was like, he said, but now I get a chance to have a whole new wardrobe. He said, I really.
00:25:29
Speaker 1: Who was his life coach, right? You know? Was he a believer?
00:25:35
Speaker 2: He wasn't. He wasn't he's a Buddhist. He wasn't. He wasn't a believer, wasn't a believer at all. I shared my face with him, he is h his Buddhist and he was like, you know, he said, he's like yeah, he said, he said, uh, he said something. Oh man, I won't get exact right, but he said he said my house. He said, our house burned down. He said, but we didn't burn with it.
00:26:02
Speaker 1: Now, wait a minute, believer or not. I've run through this door, through the door.
00:26:08
Speaker 2: Yep.
00:26:09
Speaker 1: Oh, my house burned down, but we did not burn with it. Yeah, you don't have to be a believer Buddhist, Catholic, Muslim like that could be universal right now.
00:26:26
Speaker 3: I also want to.
00:26:27
Speaker 1: Go back to what part of you you were like between sixteen and nineteen.
00:26:32
Speaker 3: I think when.
00:26:35
Speaker 1: You said I wrote, I said, you really didn't care when you asked a professor if they had a business and that professor said no, and you said, well, how can you teach me about entrepreneurship? Oh yeah, as they kicked you out.
00:26:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was. I was. I was a sophomore at the University of Georgia. I was taking a intro to Entrepreneurship, intro business whatever, this class. And I walked in, I put my bag down, I did what I normally did. I walked up. I would always greet my professors, and so I asked the professor. I said, I said, have you ever have you ever started or you ever ran a business before? And he said no, And so I said, how can you teach me how to do something you've never done? And he said, cordeli the stuff and go out of my class. And I got out. I left his class, and I dropped out of college because in my mind, I said, there's no way that I'm going to sit here and pay hundreds of dollars for a book that was written by a man who hasn't even done what I want to do. Like I am, Michelle, I'm all for taking constructive criticism, but I refuse to take constructive criticism from someone who hasn't constructed anything.
00:27:44
Speaker 1: Has not constructed nothing that's so good, good, absolutely absolutely, and going on to even that. I love how you differentiate caring what a close friend or mentor things versus someone unfamiliar with your journey, Right, those are your work, so not only that you cannot I cannot take constructive criticism unless.
00:28:08
Speaker 3: You like was my granny.
00:28:10
Speaker 1: Somehow grannies just be having wisdom about black eyed peas to business. I don't know how if you ain't my granny, I don't want to hear it, right, because we do hear you can't take Even my own sister I meant I said something like that to her one year. She said, that's not all the way true. And some older people somehow have a wisdom even though they ain't building nothing but right.
00:28:41
Speaker 2: I think, I think, I think that the wisdom. I think that wisdom comes raight from God, which is why I talk about caring about if this hurts as a mentor. This person is somebody who you know, arguably you trust. We're trusting that God will give them wisdom. Yeah, specifically from a teacher. He's not. He's not. I don't. I'm not paying to be here in the college to get wisdom. I'm paying to get your knowledge and and and unfortunately, even you.
00:29:08
Speaker 1: Say that sounds so smart mouth, but it's fact. It's true, y'all. I promise y'all, he's not being a smart butt.
00:29:16
Speaker 3: It's fat did your.
00:29:19
Speaker 1: Parents what did you do with it? Like? Come on now, like, no, it's he's not being it's it's fact.
00:29:26
Speaker 3: It's fact.
00:29:28
Speaker 1: It's taking me thirty minutes to even get get to more questions about your book because just it's just been so rich just all around.
00:29:37
Speaker 3: I think the.
00:29:40
Speaker 1: What the meat and spirit of your book is about has been pretty much in this entire conversation. So I do want to to encourage everyone to get his book. I don't care because the freedom of letting go, and I have the question is not caring?
00:29:56
Speaker 3: Is there an art to caring?
00:29:58
Speaker 1: Some people say there is an art to communitytion, like is there an art to letting go? I also want to say too more about y'all. These are just so many things that have gone on in his book that he discusses of the good things that have happened in his life that have got him to this place, and some not so good things that can almost get you callous into a place where you don't care in the most negative way. And it's a scary time when people can say what they want to say about you online and it wrecks your reputation. You talk about how the closest.
00:30:35
Speaker 3: People to you left.
00:30:37
Speaker 1: You didn't ask for clarity, just bounced, you are still thriving today and also being comfortable with being misunderstood. There's so many highlights that I took off of this book because I wanted to make sure that I was like, can you get to a place where you say I don't care and just tell everybody to fall? You know what I mean? And I don't think that that's a life when you really look at it.
00:31:09
Speaker 3: None of us want to live right.
00:31:11
Speaker 2: And I'll say this, and the book is about selective care. That's what I tell people that I don't care. Mentality is about selective care. I'm not telling people not to care. I'm telling people to choose what they truly care about. And the way I give it to you is and you'll see it throughout the book. I am really big as a coach when I sit down when I talk to professionals, when I coach businesses, I always ask them three things. What is your vision? Where are you going? What is your mission? How are you going to get there? But the last one is important to the I don't care mentality, And what are your values? Because if you can't tell me what you stand for, then that means you'll fall for anything. The reason why it's so difficult for us to tell people know is because we don't know our values. We talk a great deal about our boundaries, Well, this is my boundary. Well we base boundaries off of values. I based off of my values. So if I have a value, then now I can base the rule off of it. So I tell people it's a lot easier for you to take in the itn' care mentality when you identify your values. Like for me and my wife, one of our values is hospitality without pretension. We like to be hospitable, we like to sit with people at the table without pretension or whatever. This suffit piety. So because of that, we're able to not care that you know about other things. Because this is this is a value of ours, we're able to say no to things that that you know. We can say no to other dinner parties that don't meet that same value because it's not it's not hospitable. It's a dinner party, but it's very pretentious, it's everything else, so we can say no to it. When you adding to find your values, what's important to you, it's a lot easier for you to know what to care about and what to cast away.
00:33:05
Speaker 1: Y'all. I promise, y'all, this was the last thing I was gonna say what to care about. There's something in his book that I that suck out to me. It says entitlement dies when you care about the right things. Now what Instagram says you should want mansions, followers, fancy cars, But what likes you up? He says, For me, it was my marriage and family. I almost lost it. Fixing it meant raw conversations, couple's therapy, and showing up every day even when it hurts.
00:33:33
Speaker 3: You say, what's your thing? A dream you buried? Y'all?
00:33:38
Speaker 1: How many dreams have y'all buried? And you're not working towards a friend you've ghosted? You said, figure it out and pour your heart into it. That's what you care about, Cornelius. That's a may z.
00:33:59
Speaker 3: And I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
00:34:01
Speaker 1: I feel like you've had to go through a lot to even be able to write that right, right right, Figure it out and pour your heart into it. Thank you so much for checking in with us today, y'all. There, I guess this book it's not about I don't care in the most tempered, tantrum type of way. He's actually giving us steps and tools, and if I'm not mistaken, you do something that's called clarity coaching.
00:34:37
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:34:39
Speaker 1: Okay, So if someone is listening and you feel like you need a lot a little more clarity, not only on what we were talking about. You can get more clarity if you go and read the whole entire book. I don't care the freedom of letting go. What platforms is it available?
00:34:52
Speaker 2: To get it on Amazon? It's an audible, I have evil hard copy soft copy. You get it on Barnesandnoble dot com. You can also check out my website queneinslndsay dot com.
00:35:02
Speaker 1: Amazing clarity coaching. I've heard of life coaching, but some of us have not heard of clarity coaching.
00:35:10
Speaker 3: And then I can let you go.
00:35:11
Speaker 1: Because y'all, I want y'all to get this in as we say, get it in your spirit.
00:35:15
Speaker 3: Tell us about clarity coaching.
00:35:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, so very simple. There are areas of your life where you're confused. Clarity is enlightenment. Once you get Once you get enlightened, then you can be confident. So when you when you're like a married couple, they're like, well, I think we should get a divorce. Well, there could be maybe one or two things that we can resolve. Once we resolve those two things, you get clarity about it, You get confidence in your marriage again. You're in a transition as a pastor, as a leader. You want to exit the music industry. Okay, well let's get some clarity on where you're going, what's the vision, what's the mission, where your values? And we can then you can get some confidence and moving forward. So I help people to find clarity so they can move forward with confidence.
00:35:54
Speaker 1: Amazing, All right, anytime, anytime, you are more, more more than welcome. There's so many things that we can continue to talk about. And I'm grateful for you today, and y'all give it up for Cornelius Lindsay. Checking In with Michelle Williams is a production of iHeartRadio and The Black Effect. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
