Finding Your Purpose and Telling Your Story: The Keys to Growth

Trigger Warning: This episode includes discussions about suicide and mental health struggles. If you or someone you know is struggling, please seek help by contacting a professional or a helpline.
In this heartfelt conversation, Nikki sits down with Jamie McCormick to explore how our perspectives shape our purpose and define our lives. Jamie shares his personal journey from addiction and self-destruction to founding a movement, "Skate Angry," focused on empowering communities. They dive into the importance of gratitude, setting goals, and finding your “why” to stay anchored in life’s toughest moments. This episode reminds us all that with the right mindset, we can rise from any challenge.

Speaker 2: [00:00:00] Okay. Well, Nikki, I want to thank you for having me on your podcast.

First of all, I enjoy any time I get to talk, share, learn, help others out. It's always great. My name is Jamie McCormick and I speak and teach on something called perspective driven purpose. And I believe our perspective drives us to our purpose and our purpose helps us set our life on fire. If we let it, the problem is.

We let life's lemons, curve balls twist our perspective, and we don't have a proper grasp of where we want to go on who we want to be. And I came up with this teaching from working 10 years in a psychiatric hospital, and almost every patient there told me, they would say, Jamie, I don't know who I am anymore.

I don't know how I got here. And it got me to thinking about my place in life and how I got where I am. And I started listening to the clients who came in. And I think I learned as much from them as they learned from me. And I realized that my perspective is probably just as skewed as theirs.[00:01:00]

So I had to stop making mountains out of molehills, get my perspective, correct. And I look at other people's situations, not in a judging manner, but anytime I think my life's bad off, it's kind of like the old saying, I was upset. I had no shoes until I saw a man that had no feet. Usually no matter what we're going through, it's not as bad as we make it.

And we have to get to point. And I think our daily gratitude helps that I'm grateful for this. I'm grateful for that breath. I'm grateful for that breath. Once we start being grateful, we realize we have a lot to be grateful for. And when we're focused on being grateful and helping others, our problems get a whole lot smaller and they don't get as bad.

And that can help us get our perspective. And that also helps us. Our perspective with our speech, what we say about ourselves, the late great martial artist, Bruce Lee, one time said, don't say anything negative about yourself, even joking body doesn't know the difference. Sometimes, you know, we'll do something wrong.

Oh, I'm so [00:02:00] stupid. And we keep saying that. And we keep saying that. And we keep saying that Nikki, I believe the words I am are very powerful words. I believe what follows next is more powerful. I'm what? Yeah. I am smart. I am amazing. I'm strong. I am brave. I'm courageous. I'm dumb. I'm retarded. I'm this.

I'm that. What do we speak about ourselves? Most of the time when we speak about ourselves, that comes to fruition. So that led me into starting my company skate angry, which is about giving back to the community and help people to raise up and be better through the joy of skateboarding and help me, write a book.

Actually, it was a patient who helped me. Yeah. They helped me to get my book published. They told me I should be a motivational speaker. They told me if I put my words on a CD, they would listen to their car. And I just kind of blew it off. So try to remain humble, and then an elderly woman, she said, I want you to know your work saved my life.

That's when I went. Okay. I got something to say. [00:03:00] So I wrote a book called a man rising. So everything that I am, what I do, the book, the company, the, perspective driven purpose, it all came because a bunch of so called crazy people pushed me in that direction. So, that's me in a nutshell. That's kind of what I do and who I am.

And of course the journey's, you know, a lot longer, but that's me.

Speaker 1: One of my podcasts previous to this, I did talk about how, comparison is the thief of all joy. So taking a second to, go back to that, where you said, no shoes and no feet? Yeah.

Speaker 2: I was upset. I had no shoes until I saw a man that had no feet.

Right. One thing that we need to know is we're not better than anybody.

We are just better off than other people. Some people have bigger bank accounts. They have a better mental stability. They have better grasp of this, or that. Everybody's better off than everybody else in some way. I'm smarter than you in some ways. You're smarter than me in some ways, but I'm better off than Elon Musk in [00:04:00] some ways.

So we're all better off than other people in certain areas.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: You'd remember that there are people who are asking for the life that we're complaining about. Maybe, it's kind of like the whole analogy of the cup being half empty or half full. Is it half empty or half full? It doesn't matter.

There's water in it. Drink it. Shut up. It can be refilled. That's what you look at. It doesn't matter. You got a cup full of water. Drink it. Put more in it.

Speaker 1: The other thing you said was, the more you look to do to make sure that you're being grateful for things, the better you feel. I was challenged once to do a list of 50 things I was grateful for.

Speaker 1: Right. The

Speaker 1: first couple were kind of easy. After that, it was like, I'm grateful that there are leaves on trees. Right. I don't know why, but like, let's be grateful for something at this point. Have you ever done a challenge like that and tried to like, Cause I mean it, it forces you to really look

Speaker 2: right.

I haven't [00:05:00] done that, but what I have done, I've missed the past couple of years is I used to go live on Facebook every day from November 1st to Thanksgiving, something to be grateful for. And then I challenged other people to do it as well. What are you grateful for? Cause if you look around, even leaves on trees are worth being grateful for the people who live in deserts, have no trees.

Yeah, it may sound silly, but everything that you can be grateful for, it helps you look around and look at the small things. As I said, every breath I'm grateful for every hair on my head that I still have. I'm grateful for it. I'm grateful that I can still walk. I don't have arthritis or so much.

My grandchildren are healthy. There's a lot to be grateful for.

I do know that what I talk about, my perspective driven purpose is directly tied with business. There are many business people. Well, okay, let's put it this way. 1929, something happened that affected most people around the world. You have to know what that is. It lasted 10 years.

Speaker 1: Okay. [00:06:00]

Speaker 2: The great depression started in 1929.

People were selling their kids just so they could survive. People were jumping out of buildings because they lost a few million dollars and they still had millions in the bank account, but because they lost money, they were taking their lives. They had the perspective was all messed up. So focused on money.

So focused on this and that. It doesn't matter how much money you make. It doesn't matter how successful your business is. If you go home at the end of the day and you have a ​I'm going to put a ​against your head. All that success. It doesn't matter. We have to bring ourselves down from our ivory towers back down to more normal people live and realize that that's not success.

They say money can't buy happiness. That's what people were ​[00:07:00] themselves during the great depression because they were losing money. They thought they were losing their happiness. Directly tied To businesses, the whole mental acuity of it is you can't focus your business on making money. I always say you can either help people or you can make money.

Now, if you're out to help people, you'll make money hand over fist. If you're out to make money, you won't be helping people. You'll just be making money. And when we give, when we help people, that's where we feel better about ourselves. It's where we can get a proper perspective on things. Because again, we're not looking at our own problems.

Those are all so small because if you're helping someone get over their stuff, you're not looking at yours. And if someone's helping me get over mine, they're not looking at theirs. And it's a circle. It's a symbiotic circle relationship that we help each other and we all rise together.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Rising ship or rising tides, raise all ships

Speaker: right.

Speaker 2: Right. [00:08:00] All ships get stuck in the mud until water comes in and then it pulls them up out of the water or up out of the mud.

Speaker 1: Okay. So how did you change your life around? How did you go from where you were before Skate Angry to now with Skate Angry? How did you do that?

Speaker 2: Okay. God, a hundred percent. Here's how that happened. Okay. We did a lot of moving around. I got to tell a story because it's just quite a bit. So I'm gonna tell a story.

We did a lot of moving around when I was a kid. We went to nine different schools. Almost 10 before I graduated. Never really had a lot of friends cause we did a lot of moving, but it was adventurous, man. We saw a lot of cool things, a lot of places, a lot of new stuff. It was always cool. Never complained.

So we ended up in a town called Allen, Oklahoma. Graduated from there in 1989. And then we had goals, to move back home to Indiana, but my brother passed [00:09:00] away in a car wreck, took the wind out of our sails and things just happened. And we just kind of stayed here. So I hung on to my group of friends and hung on to them tightly that after my brother died, that's all I had.

So we were all partying before, but after he died, it just got harder. We just dug in and we drank a lot. We did things and I joined martial arts when I was about 22. In 1994, my instructor asked me, or he suggested rather, he said, you should consider trying out for the Olympics in 1996 and representing America.

He said, we got two years, we'll get you ready. I went, huh? Okay. I'd never thought about that, but I met the wrong people, ended up doing meth and cocaine and becoming addicted and never tried out for the Olympics and never went down that road. And that's probably the only thing I regret is. Not going to the Olympics.

I mean, even if I had to come in 20th, that's 19 people on the planet better than me. But what if I came in first? Now I'll never know. And it's [00:10:00] like that old saying, there's nothing more powerful than the sword or pen, except for mighty words, what might have been. I regret that a lot, 54 now is 22 back then.

So I ended up getting addicted, went down a different path. I've worked out in martial arts a few times since then, but never to the intensity that we were working out. And I misused everything I taught in martial arts on the street. Dealers were using me to go collect money. I would go settle debts, settle scores.

I'd get all the free dope I wanted. And, I called a friend of mine who lived in Kansas. I said, buddy, I need you to come get me. I got to get cleaned up. So he drove six hours down from Topeka, picked me up, drove me north to Topeka, Kansas, and we get there. He's living with the woman, her son, deal cocaine out of the bottom of his.

House. And I said, dude, what part of get clean? Did you not understand? I wasn't mad at him. I was just like, I'm trying to get in. And here's a cocaine dealer. So I went from meth to cocaine overnight in Topeka, Kansas. [00:11:00] And then when, one of my friends followed me down there, we just raised hell at Topeka, man, we were all over the place.

And then I moved back to Oklahoma. And, he moved back up and then I met this girl, we started dating and then I think October, November, somewhere in there of 2001, we were talking and she said, I have something to tell you. I said, what's up? She had called me. We were on the phone. She said, I'm pregnant and I'm leaving you for your best friend.

And I went, okay, now my jacked up drugged out mind. I was more concerned about my best friend screwing me than I was having a kid. So I hung up the phone and I went in my bathroom and I looked in my mirror and Nikki, I didn't see a martial artist. I didn't see anything cool. My eyes were black.

My cheeks were sunk in. My skin was greasy. My hair was shiny. I saw a junkie. And as I looked at myself and then I started thinking, Oh man, there's a kid coming. I thought I've got to do something. I was [00:12:00] 31 at this time. And at that time, the one night stands, the fist fighting, the drugs, the drinking, the martial arts, the concerts I played, the bands I've been in.

All it got me was addicted to drugs with a kid on the way. So as I'm looking in this mirror, I was just skinny. Anyways, the mirror tells a tale that we can't get away from. It tells a truth that you may not want, but you can't run from it because you're looking at it. And the truth was, I was not fit to be a father.

So I thought my dad was never around when I was a kid. I can tell you probably five things about him. I just didn't know him. He wasn't abusive. He just wasn't there. And I mean, he was even dead for six years. I didn't even know he was dead. And then someone finally told me, and then I was like, man, I wish I would've talked to him.

Now I wish I were taking those opportunities. It's funny how when our own work mortality is faced, that we get serious with the life. Someone dies. Then you want to talk to them. Then you want to do this stuff. That's why I tell people if an angel were to come and tell you that you're going to [00:13:00] die in seven days, how hard did you fight for that relationship?

How hard did you fight to give forgiveness or to get forgiveness for something you've done? How hard did you fight to succeed in life? If you knew you had seven days or the truth, Nikki, we may have seven days. We need to fight now because we don't know. So as I was looking in the mirror, I thought I'm not going to be my dad, but I knew something had to change and it had to be me.

We And all my life we had kind of gone to church, but we just did it because it's what you do. We went on Sundays, holidays, you know, gave money every now and then. We never really, embraced it, I guess. And I'd always heard about this loving God. I'd always heard about how he helps and he blesses and he prays and all this stuff.

And at that point in my life, I didn't know if he'd ever love me. I didn't know if he'd ever help me. Now that I'm a Christian looking back, oh, I can count the ways. But at that time I didn't know. So I asked myself this question. I said, if God is so loving, how much more could he mess my life up? Because I done a pretty good job at it.[00:14:00]

So I started going to church, never looked back, was there for my daughter, had a lot to fight through. My ex didn't trust me. I had to fight for custody. I went to establish child support. I did all this stuff, ended up eventually getting custody of my daughter. So it was a full circle. But that's how I changed my life is I looked in that mirror and went.

This isn't it. This isn't going to work. And I had to try the one thing I hadn't tried and actually try it. Not just listen to other people go, it's fake or what did I had to go give it a hundred percent effort. So I did. As I said, God is the reason I think he gave me my daughter to save my life.

And it's not that I was suicidal, but none of us just really, Acting like we wanted to live. We were on a path of destruction and death, and we were going to take you with us. We'll leave you behind. And that's just how we were. We weren't suicidal, but we just didn't care if we lived or died. And all of a sudden I had a reason to care.

So that's how I, changed my life around. And then a few [00:15:00] years later, I was trying to find something I could do another stream of income. And, 30 years ago when I met some friends, they got me into skating. And I wrecked a lot, just skate, just as fast as I could. And one day, and one of my friends went, dang, Jamie, don't skate angry.

And I thought that's a cool name for a clothing line. But I just told you the story of addiction. Things happen. Yada, yada, yada. And I was sitting on my couch and I said, I should start skating angry. And then I kind of sat up and I went, I should start skating angry. I did. I called a friend. We got the LLC, got some shirts, got some decks, got the tax information.

And here we are up and running trying to make it big. So that's how I changed my life from where I was to where I'm at. I am at with my book and Skate Angry and stuff now.

Speaker 1: Okay. So I do have a question about the name Skate Angry.

Speaker 2: Right.

Speaker 1: So for me, I know if I get mad and I go do something, I'm gonna get myself in trouble, probably pretty quickly because anger adds [00:16:00] speed to the things that don't need speed attached to them.

But for skating. What exactly does that mean? Skate angry. Are you telling people to skate angry or is there something else behind it?

Speaker 2: Well, there's something else behind it in martial arts, they would push us to the point to where we would get mad, like we would call women the B word, we would, we'd push them.

We really push them. Once they got mad, we would say, no, focus that. Focus that anger, focus it. And that's the key. I was at the skate park the other day and saw some kid. He messed up his trick and took a skateboarding, threw it across the, skate park, his skateboard bounce. But then he picked it up.

He kind of went, he got on, he took off again. That's skate angry. You take your failures, you take your anger, you direct it and you go succeed with it. It's not about being mad when you are, but you take that anger as you fail that you miss that and you go with it and that's get angry.

Speaker 1: Okay. I like it. [00:17:00] So I know you do talks about,

perspective Driven Purpose. What is like one main point that you talk about during that? And maybe give some people tips towards it.

Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. The main point is for me to get people to look at things in a different way. Like, I love when I'm giving a speech or something and I see their eye kind of go ting, they get it. You know, and my main thing is I want people to look that things aren't as bad as they seem.

They think they are. And when I was in the psych hospital working, I would have some patients coming to me who'd been there for four or five days and they would say, I think I get it now. And I'll say, what do you mean? There was a, after looking around everybody, remember I told you about comparison to the problems they would look around and they would say, I don't have problems as bad as I think I do when they would see other people who couldn't talk or couldn't something like that.

They're like, why am I complaining? So that's my whole deal is just to [00:18:00] look at your perspective. You're probably not as bad off as you think you are. And it's all how you think you are. So that's my whole goal is to get them to think different about themselves, their situation, and to get them on a path to, as I said, gratefulness.

But that's the whole idea behind perspective driven purpose is to change perspective and go find your purpose.

Speaker 1: Is there any other points you wanted to make? Is there anything else you wanted to say?

Speaker 2: Without just telling my story from beginning to end, I have a hard time sometimes. Pulling things out. Sometimes with perspective driven purpose is we often take our past and we put it on our present and we prejudge our future and the failure.

I use this analogy. There's a guy who likes this girl who likes this guy, but they've both been screwed in past relationships. So when they meet, they take those hurts and they put them on each other and the relationship is doomed to fail right off the bat. You know, and I've seen people do that [00:19:00] who are like, well, I've seen this, this, this, and this happened.

I assume you're going to do the same thing. Well, you don't know me. So why would we do that? But yet we do that. And there's a, therapist named Charles Spielberger. He's recently passed away, but he came up with something called, cognitive restructuring. And it's basically changed the way you think.

Just because I had something bad happen on other podcasts, which I have, I'm just saying, if I did, it'd be stupid for me to put that on you on this podcast or this podcast wouldn't be any good.

You can't take your failures and put it on other people because those people aren't the ones that you had the bad experience with, but we tend to do that.

So we need to cut it to restructuring. You need to change the way we think and people need to, Look around at their circumstances and change the way they think and find their purpose. Especially in business or the business won't go anywhere. If they keep taking their past and putting it on, on, on [00:20:00] the present, your future is going to fall.

It won't go nowhere.

Speaker 1: I know one of the things that I have spoken about before is, I'm one of those people I deal with a lot of mental health issues and health issues myself, but I am constantly, setting the goalposts just a little bit further ahead a little bit further ahead so that I always have something that I'm reaching for.

I've done better with that in the past. I'm, obviously working with Tonya I'm going to do better on that moving forward. But, what are your. Like when do you sit down to make new goals when you've already completed, your big one, or is it before that?

Speaker 2: It's always before that. I think many goals, many goals, hope you get your big goal.

And as I'm doing skate anger in my book, I have these goals and I learn new information. So the goals change a little. You know, and I don't stop the goal. It just changes a little bit to achieve the great big one. So I have a lot of mini goals. I got an event I want to put on in May. [00:21:00] But to get that in May, there are many goals to even get that that leads to a bigger goal.

So I set goals all the time and I change them all the time, but I never stop my goals. I just change what they are to better fit where I want to go. But I'm always setting goals. And I've heard many people say that you should get a white board and write them up. I don't have a white board. I got no paper.

I use that. But I've always heard that many successful people write their goals down so they can see them every day. And I've heard many success stories of people who write their goals down. And then years later, end up having those same goals because they can focus on, they see them every day and they gives them something to work for.

Like they just automatically start working for them because they see them. So, yeah, I, I'm always setting goals.

Speaker 6: Hey everyone, thanks for sticking with us. Before we dive into our next topic, I just want to take a quick moment to remind you to like this video, subscribe to our channel, and hit that notification bell. That way, you'll always be the first to know when a new episode drops. And we want to hear from [00:22:00] you.

What topics are you most excited about? Drop your thoughts in the comments below. Your feedback helps us create content that you love. We've got some exciting stuff coming your way, so don't miss out. Now, let's switch gears and jump into our next discussion.

Speaker 1: Even from what we see here. With you talking, telling a story of how somebody got from being, as far down as they could, they want it to be.

Or they are rock bottom and then once they're famous or whatever, they tell that story of coming up and out of that. It helps other people be able to realize that they can come out of that. It takes a little bit of skill to be able to tell that story though, because you can't just be like, yo, I was in a hole and I'm not, so it's great.

That's not going to motivate other people. There are things that you want in your story. You want to build connections. You want to make people see and feel where you [00:23:00] were at the beginning. And then each of the steps that you took to come out of that. So I looked in the mirror and I decided this is not me.

This is not who I want to be. I have. A baby coming in. I can't stay here anymore. So that ended up being your rock bottom. And then you go and you went and you did because you can't stand still and change your life at the same time. I really admire people who do that.

I hit rock bottom in a different way because mine wasn't, drugs or anything. Mine was my mental health completely was out of it for a couple of years there from it. And, just, once I got into a situation where I could calm down again. And I wasn't constantly being screamed at. I didn't have a narcissist saying, you breathe wrong.

How, why would you do that? That kind of thing. As soon as I got out of that kind of a situation and I was in one that was semi calmer, then I started to come out of, [00:24:00] you know, the deep, dark place that my inner self went to because I could relax. I had a chance to see further than the next time somebody was going to be screaming at me.

I had a chance to see that.

Once I was in that commerce situation and I didn't have people screaming at me constantly because you know How dare you put paper towels on the table? I don't know. That's where they've been for the last year Why am I being yelled at for that? And then moving into a commerce situation where I could finally go Okay Now I have to go forward Kind of don't know how at the moment But I made those choices, one step in front of the other.

So I am right. I am Mormon, LDS, I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints, however it is that you can identify being not one of them. They [00:25:00] have classes that are self-help and I took one of those classes. And it was math because it was finances. Like, let's get your finances in order.

My credit score back when I took that class was in the two hundreds. So that made a humongous goal for me because my credit was screwed before I turned 18, because my mom was a special person and she put. Electric bills and cable bills in my name and then never paid for them So I graduated high school with bad credit but Learning how to do finances because obviously with a mother who's going to put that kind of stuff on my credit I didn't learn that when I was younger.

I didn't know anything I didn't have anybody who could tell me any of that stuff I didn't know anything about credit scores and how to check them or any of that stuff And [00:26:00] in the last what five years i've gone from my credit score being as low as probably Most people could get it right and i'm over 700 on my credit score now because I set those goals And I kept working toward it

Every once in a while, if I spend too much on my credit card, I'll go down three points. But then I come back with seven, so it's like a thing. But I've managed to keep paying for things. I've managed to keep doing all of the things I needed to do to make sure that my credit went up. It was a lot of work.

That's not something that is simple at all to do, especially when you don't have those things hardwired into you because your family as a kid taught you, you said you had nine different elementary schools. I was a military brat whose mom was allergic to paying rent. I think [00:27:00] I went to 20 different elementary schools.

States and different parts of the state. I went to a lot I've gone to like inner city schools and I've gone to, the more relaxed schools got to say the more relaxed schools did better for me than the inner city ones did.

Speaker 2: Oh yeah.

Speaker 1: But again, it was. Me finding information, me hearing a story about somebody else doing better, about their change of life that helped me go, Oh, wait, it's not supposed to be like this.

Because without the story, I would have just thought, Oh, it's absolutely normal to not be able to get a credit card when you try to sign up for one.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 1: I've never been able to have a credit card before. It was like, what are you talking about? I can have one. Wow. Got to be careful with having one, [00:28:00] obviously.

But it was a turning point for me when somebody shared their story with me to go, Oh wait, that's not normal. Let me figure that out then. So the storytelling is absolutely one of the most important parts in mental health in business. It just it helps rise all of those ships, right? So everybody starts out in the mud and you're like, hey, let me tell you a story.

And you tell them about how another group of people who were down in the mud are now, millionaires or they have yachts or whatever they change from little canoes to something better and you tell them that story and if you can do it in a way that, builds no like and trust, then you will be telling these people, okay, [00:29:00] so when this group started it, they were here.

Same as you. And then you tell them exactly what the other team did to come up out of the mud. Then you've done that. Now, the biggest thing is you want to motivate those people so much that now that they're out of their mud, and say there's five people, each of those five people goes and helps another five people.

And I'm not talking about network marketing. I'm just saying, if you learn how to do something and then you teach, Oh, you know what? I heard this story and I think it might help you. I'm not going to say it as good as them, but here's my embellished version. Right. It will still have an effect on them.

You'll still be helping them. I think it was Atlas is the God with the earth on his shoulder or something. So he's just sitting there with this big old thing on his shoulder. I am quite sure that if somebody could have [00:30:00] taught him. I'm taking this wildly out of context because great gods, whatever.

But if you teach somebody how to teach. A lot of people times that's what people feel like it is on them. I have the whole world on my shoulders. I have to learn how to deal with it. I have to do the next thing. No, you need to learn how to let that go or put it down and decide what are the most important parts of.

The big boulder you were just carrying, let's make that 10 stones or something so that you have manageable goals and manageable. This is what I want to do because it's not always manageable to say, I'm going to be a billionaire in three years, starting at 15 an hour. I am quite sure that in three years you're going to need more work to become a billionaire.

It is possible.

But most people are going to need more work than three years to become a [00:31:00] billionaire.

Speaker 2: Absolutely. You know, I've heard people say that when you Don't tell your story. No one cares. I've heard of the people say, no, do tell your story because people care. I tell my story because people don't care what you know until they know that you care.

That's why I think storytelling is very important. You mentioned Alex, you know, in the Bible, it says we're supposed to carry each other's burdens. We're not meant to do this life alone.

Speaker 1: Mm.

Speaker 2: We're meant to have family, friends, a wife, a husband, whatever, to carry these burdens with us. And when we don't ask for help, which is what people tend to do a lot, then we get burdened down.

Then we get burdened down, then we get burdened down. And from talking to the people in enroll in the hospital who are, suicidal, I've come to find out that nobody wants to die. They just want the situation to end. They want the pain to go away, and they don't know how to do it. So that seems like the other alternative and it's sad that we're in that spot as a society where people feel killing themselves is a better alternative than asking for [00:32:00] help.

Speaker 1: I have been classified as actively passively suicidal. So. I'm not gonna do anything to myself, and I've, made that quite clear to everybody and their brother, but if there was a bad situation about to happen, and I could save somebody's life, but it was gonna kill me, I'm saving that person's life, and I don't care that I'm about to die.

Like, I'm not gonna do it on purpose just to do it on purpose. But, I'm also not going to guard my life like some other people would.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know if that, if I'd even call that suicidal, like listing my granddaughter in a freight train, or she'll push her, I'll push her out of the way and spare my life.

It doesn't mean I'm suicidal. I'm just protecting somebody.

Speaker 1: All the suicidal part is kind of lower because of the meds I'm on, but there is also that, Oh, you're not good enough. Why are you here? That kind of stuff. But the part where I, if it's basically, I'm not going to kill myself, but if the opportunity was there, I may not be as.

Hesitant to do something as somebody [00:33:00] else would because

it's a thing and I struggle with it because you hear from a lot of people you should love living You should want to be here The things that have happened in my life have led me to a point where I'm here and I'm actively participating in my life.

I am not like being sitting on the sidelines. I am doing work. I am getting better every day at different things that I do, and I will continue to do so. But there are days, I have my bad days, obviously having multiple mental health things going on. Just the physical things alone some days is like, oh, I am tired of being in pain.

Let's Not do this anymore. But the point is I'm still here. I'm still doing, I'm still building and I know that I have somebody who would, take over everything I'm doing. If something did happen, I'm not going to leave people on a lurch. That's not something I [00:34:00] do. But my story doesn't end with me saying I am actively passively suicidal because I explain I may be that.

You could give me scenarios like that would hurt too much. No, I don't want that one. I'd be alive too long. That one doesn't sound fun because it sounds like I'd be in pain for more than I'm already in. So that's okay. I don't need that one. You know, but I have come to a point where I can joke about it because it's not, in my head, it's not this big thing, right?

It's just a little whisper that is there and I am still fighting against it. When you have mental health problems, when you are going through it every single day, you have those weak days when you're like, why am I fighting so hard? And being able to pick up a goal [00:35:00] or you have your why, why are you here? Right? I have a very strong. Why am I here?

Speaker: He was very strong, right?

Speaker 1: Very strong. Why? Because once you understand why you're still living, okay. Then you are not going to do the stupid thing quite as easily as somebody who doesn't have a why sometimes bad things happen But usually if you have a why and you've cemented it down in your head I am NOT going to die because I have kids who need me I have grandkids coming who will need me so I'm gonna stick around Because I'm not doing that.

Or it's I get rid of myself. Somebody has to find me. And so what I'm doing is taking my mental health problems and shoving them at somebody else and saying here you deal with this problem now because now they're going to have [00:36:00] problems from finding you. So that's a that's one of my big reasons why I'm not doing anything.

It's because I don't want the people around me to suffer. Because I made at the end of the day, I made a stupid decision,

Speaker 2: right? Absolutely. Yeah. I think the whole suicidal mindset and I've actually tried suicide. 1 time, me and friend were sitting on a car. And he said, you want to pay Russian roulette?

And I went, sure. Thinking he was joking. He pulled out a gun was one bullet. And he spins the chamber. He hands it to me. I pulled the trigger and to him, he pulls the trigger. I do it again. And then he does it again. He hands it back to me. Now there's two shots left, one bullet. And it's my turn. I put the gun in my head and I pull it away and I look at it and I look over at him.

And I pointed the gun to the ground and I pulled the trigger and it goes, bang, it goes off. I was that close to, to, just like you said, that my mom would have had to [00:37:00] bury her second son, you know, it would have caused so much pain. Suicide doesn't make the pain go away. It's passed it on to other people,

and I always tell people, no matter what you're going through, suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem, whatever people are going through, we can get you through it may not be the exact solution you want, but, you know, We can get you through it.

And I heard something said from a pastor years ago. He said, if you can't change something, don't worry about it. If you can change something, don't worry about it, go change it. And that just totally affected all kinds of stuff. People are worried about. Like you said, credit word about bills or food or what, whatever.

Can you change the situation? Then go change it. Don't worry about it. You know, those people who are richer than us or who are better off than us or this and that, I don't think they sit around and worry about things they can't change. They go change the things they can change. And that's why they're changing because they're making a difference instead of folks, stuff that's out of their, sphere of influence.

If you can't influence what's going on in your [00:38:00] life, then it's what I call the sphere of interest. You're interested in it, but you can't really influence it. Focus on your inner sphere that you can change and go change those things.

Speaker 1: So there's that thing where if don't comment on somebody else in this, they can fix it right there.

It's like if you're talking to someone and you can see that they have lipstick on their teeth, you can gently tell them, Hey, you. You might want to double check your teeth in the mirror, because that is something that can be fixed. And if you do it gently and quietly enough, you're probably not going to embarrass them or they're going to be embarrassed because they have lipstick on their teeth, but it's not going to be as bad as if you yelled into a crowd, ew, why do you have that on your teeth?

Speaker 2: Right. It's how you approach things, you know,

Speaker 1: telling somebody, Oh, you're fat. You should change that. That's not something they can change right then and there. That has nothing to do with you. And you should probably mind your [00:39:00] business. They may already be working on their body.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 1: They might have enough, autoimmune diseases or disorders that they can't work on their body. And that's why they are as big as they are.

Speaker 2: Right, right. When you're talking to people. There's 2 ways to listen. 1 is a listen to understand. And the other 1 is listen to reply.

If you're just listening to reply, you shouldn't be talking. You should always listen to understand. So when you do reply, it's a better reply. Because you actually know what's going on in someone's

life, always get as much as many facts as you can because unless you're speaking truth Everything's just an opinion Yeah, we all have opinions

Speaker 1: Just because you have one doesn't mean it's right also.

Speaker 2: Oh, of course It's what I tell people, when they say speak your truth, well, Nikki, there is no your truth. There is no my truth. There's just the truth. And then our opinion [00:40:00] about it. So everything's an opinion, unless you're speaking truth, so two plus two is four.

That's truth. You say it's five. That's an opinion. No, it's not.

Speaker 1: No. So interesting for you to say that. I went to college at Bryan and Stratton in Syracuse, New York to get my associates of IT degree. And I am one of those people who can't test for nothing So I ended up in the pre algebra class Which I can do pre algebra.

I just can't do algebra Right pre algebra is just addition and subtraction, the normal stuff before they put the alphabet in it I can do all that stuff I might have been in special ed, but they taught me how to do, that part. I got out of special ed in eighth grade. So I did have years and years of learning better, you know, more than just that.

But math for me, like the strongest I am at it is a distance [00:41:00] subtraction, multiplication, division, but I can't do any of that stuff in my head. I have to write it down.

Speaker: Yeah. I was never good at math either.

Speaker 1: I am, I'm not really good at math. And so when I tested, I knew I was getting the dumb class.

I knew it. I'm getting the lowest class possible, that's what's happening. I didn't really care. But what happened was, I'm in that class and we're doing the exercises and I'm like, okay, this is how you do this is how and I'm just doing it because I can actually do it. I just can't test out of anything.

And one of the ladies in the room is like, You're smart. You know how to do this stuff. Can you teach me? And I'm like, Okay, well, you know, it's one of those longer problems where you had to do Piedmont's Pretty Please My Dear Aunt Sally. And I was like, Sure, I can help. And she's like, Well, I keep coming up with the wrong answer.

And I was like, Okay, well, what is [00:42:00] two plus two? Literally the numbers like I'm not making up these numbers. It was literally two plus two and then plus, and then something else in parentheses, but the two plus two were in parentheses. So I did the first parentheses first and I was like, okay, so what's two plus two?

This chick actually said, uh, five. I said, okay, so we have two and we had two more two ahead. How many is that? And she went, Oh, four. I'm like, yes. And she goes, Oh, so that's why I'm getting them wrong. I'm like, yeah, that might help.

Speaker 2: Right, right. We have so many people out there saying that everything is wrong and you shouldn't need to rethink everything.

Some things you don't need to rethink. Two plus two is four. Three plus three is six. There's no need to rethink some things. It's just that's the way it is.

Speaker 1: I mean you can get funky with it by [00:43:00] putting negative numbers and stuff in there, but On average two plus two is four

Speaker 2: Right negative. There's no need for now to be throwing off.

It's no no need

Speaker 1: Okay, so there are three types of stories you can tell in business original origin stories customer success stories and employee stories or there's in community impact. So there's four actually so your origin story, how did you become a business? What made you decide?

Oh, i'm gonna be stay angry today or from now on or I'm going to be Nikki's office. For me, it was, this is what I do. I've helped somebody forever and telling that story to get people to be like, oh, okay, now I have an emotional investment in stay angry. I'm going to try to go find out what they do.

I'm going to find their t shirts, their skateboards, whatever, so that I can be a part of that community. And then [00:44:00] once they're part of that community, and you have a community story, that's where. You have that oh, we have this one person in our community and they were doing so good. And you know what, they ended up helping like 10 other people in our community.

And now we have levels here so that people, if you're at a 10, you can help those who are at a five and things like that, to help people have an emotional investment in your company. And then your community, obviously customers are going to give reviews. Hopefully, hopefully on Google so that you can, make your business look better because it is good.

Let's not try to do a bad company and then try to look good. It doesn't usually work for too long. So that's your, your customer story. So then you, If they share the story, if they share, hey, I came in and I was very upset about something, and the employees at Skate Angry just made sure that I was okay, and [00:45:00] they helped me get the thing I needed for my son's birthday party in an hour or whatever.

My for instances have been very tame today. That's very good. And then your employee story. So what is your employee saying about, stay angry about the customers, about the community? Because that makes it even, makes it an even better story. You know, I had an employee that was homeless when he started working with me, and I made sure that we found him somewhere to stay and all that, and then you hear the story from the employee's thing saying, I was down, I thought I was going to be out because it was a cold winter and then you know what?

I managed to say something to him, and instead of being a cruel boss like everybody here is everywhere. He made sure that I had somewhere I could go that I could get warm and all that kind of stuff. And he made sure that, I could still work. All of those stories [00:46:00] separately and together should Highlight what is happening at skate angry at whatever business my business It is solely me and if i'm in a bad mood today, then my company outlook isn't too good But I try to you know, I try to not get into bad moods, but there are days where i'm sitting here going.

Oh, why did you call me? You made me mad but but if you have Everybody seen, disney movies like pinocchio. I think pinocchio is it and Crap was it? but you know that story just you could almost do pinocchio as a silent movie and Everybody from a certain year Certain age up will go.

Oh, I love this part with Jiminy Cricket Oh, I love this part when they turned into donkeys and he I mean, it was [00:47:00] awesome. I loved it when Pinocchio got a tail. He got cute or whatever and so I like everybody knows that story and you feel it unfortunately for me, I tend to be a crier over everybody else's emotions.

But, if I watch a movie, and it's sad, I'm gonna be bawling. It is not fair that they get to arrange music that makes you, have to cry. In some situations. But, that storytelling, that music that adds to the storytelling, right? That all makes it like a visceral feeling, so that the next time you have anywhere near that feeling, you're going, Oh yeah, I should probably watch Pinocchio again.

Or, I should probably do more in my business because that is what makes that big, super powerful moment happen. And [00:48:00] doing that, having, those epiphanies and storytelling, works wonders. It helps you like, when you say you have a 40 minute story, when you're talking about that, some parts of it, I'm sure that there are people like, oh, I'm so sorry that he went through that.

And so there'll be upset and they're crying because. It's bad story that's happening, but because they have empathy and because they're crying, they are connecting to you and you know that they're connecting to you. So what happens with me is I use humor to do the same thing. I may not tell a big elaborate story, but my, for instances, get wild.

Sometimes, I'd be like, okay, you're on a turtle. How does this turtle make it to the water? That kind of thing, let's do something silly because now you're laughing, which means you're paying attention. You can't [00:49:00] laugh and not be paying attention at the same time. So that's how I gauge if people are listening to me a lot of the times is because, so that's how I use humor to figure that out is because if I'm sitting here and I'm cracking a joke and you're just.

Usually people laugh and if you're laughing, you're listening, you're taking in the information. I am somebody. I don't like being touched. I don't want you to come up to me and shake my hand. I don't wanna be hugged. Keep your hands to yourself. And but when I talk about it, I usually do it in a funny way to make sure that people were laughing because again, If they're laughing, they're going to remember, Oh yeah, she doesn't like to be touched.

Let's not do that.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1: It creates moments. I have autoimmune disorders. My hands have arthritis in them and it makes handshaking hurt. Plus I've been in enough situations where my agency was [00:50:00] ignored. I would just like to not be touched by people now. It's nothing against the person who at this moment is about to do that, except I've made that wildly kno Everybody who knows me knows I have like this big steel bubble around me that I don't want people to get into.

But like, if a friend of mine came up to me and was like, upset I would totally give them a hug and that makes it more special for those people because they're like normally Nikki won't touch me But I know that if I'm upset and I go to Nikki she'll hug me. It's a half hug I'd be like, I don't like my arms pinned or anything, but they like the cheering Bids after somebody gets a willing hug for me is a little terrifying To be quite honest,

But it, shows that people appreciate my boundaries, but they also know [00:51:00] that I will step out of my comfort zone to make sure they're okay. I am not putting up a wall between me and everybody else. I'm putting up like a screen that can be opened. Like I couldn't do a walls anyway. I'm claustrophobic.

So

but there is there, I don't want to get sick. I don't want my hands to ache because you decided you had to, he man, my hand. And it's my body. I get to make those decisions. I haven't always been able to get that chance. Now I take that chance.

Speaker: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.

Speaker 1: So that's why storytelling matters because it helps people to get that visceral reaction because once they have a visceral response to what you're saying, they'll remember it. They're going to tell somebody else about it. Hey, look, I just talked [00:52:00] to this guy from skate angry and he has a great story.

Maybe you should go to him and listen to it, that's how people network. It's basically, oh hey, I have this person over here who shared this story with me that was great. Why don't you go listen?

Speaker 2: Absolutely. You know, you were talking about the different types of stores and business.

Most of those, actually, all of them kind of fit skate angry. What it's about, getting angry is made. So, after we pay our bills and our salary, we're paying 100 percent back to the community. We're not going to store a big bank account. There's no need for people are hungry and they can't pay rent.

They're dying because no medicine. Let's get them that medicine. And most of our employees, if we can swing it, are going to be homeless people. Okay. We want to get them off the street as much as we can and give them a job and give them opportunity. So those storytellers think, yeah, fit skate angry, a hundred percent.

That's the whole idea behind it is not to be just another skateboard company. Cause there's a ton of them out there. So what makes us different is the movement behind skating. Have you ever watched any of the [00:53:00] walking dead, the TV show?

Speaker 1: I don't watch TV. I have seen commercials and stuff though.

Speaker 2: Right? So there was a bad guy. The walking dead and, he had a gang of people. And when anybody would ask a member of his gang, who are you? They would say, I am Negan. They want to say I'm part of the community. Now the leader's name is Negan, but they would say, I am Negan. Well, that's how skate angry is.

You're not part of skate angry. You are skate angry.

And that's how I want people to feel. It's a movement. We're pushing Nikki. We're not pushing skateboards. We're not pushing shirts, skateboards, necklaces, cups. They push the movement of Skate Angry to build the community up. That's all it's about is people.

If we had a mission statement, it'd be one word. People. That's it.

Speaker 1: Yep. My mission is to help people learn to be better because I know, if you'd have known me in 2011, you'd been like, [00:54:00] what are you doing? You're so different because I wasn't in the right state of mind for anything. I was really bad off in 2011 now in 2024 I am doing a whole lot better, but it wasn't just as simple as me saying, okay I'm gonna be better now.

There are steps you have to take It's not an easy road to be better to do better, but it is something that we should be doing We can't stay where we're at None of us should stay where we're at. If you're doing good, great. Reach for doing better. If you're doing bad for something better. If you're making millions, reach for making billions, but spread that out in the community.

Right. But again, if somebody makes millions, that's their money, they can do what they want with it. We would hope to give out in the community, but that doesn't mean they have to. They can go make a bank like Scrooge McDuck and start [00:55:00] swimming in it.

Speaker 2: Right. I always get irritated when people talk about this billionaire.

He could give so much money to these people, da, da, da, da. Why does he have to, because he's a billionaire. I think they should. Mm-Hmm. But they don't have to at all.

Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely should. Yeah. Because they have it. But at the same time, it doesn't mean that they're going to.

Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm not going to hold against them if

they don't. There's nothing we can do about that.

Exactly. Something we can't control. And you

know what? Some of, most of them, most of the billionaires on this planet, if they have a company, they are giving to the communities. They're giving to a lot of communities.

You want to know why? Because it's a tax write off. Of course they're doing it. But they're doing it behind the scenes and you're not seeing it, so you don't think they're doing anything.

Speaker: For sure.

Speaker 1: But it also in the Bible, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing when it comes to tithing and [00:56:00] stuff like that.

You're not supposed to be big flashy. You're not supposed to take out a billboard that says I paid 10 percent in tithing this year.

Speaker 2: Right. I think it's wrong to give and then record it and put it on Facebook or whatever. You know, look what I did. If you do that, You're trying to get something for it and it's not the same.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Those people who take cameras around to, to feed the homeless. I'm just like, Oh, yep. You got the glory of the world. So that's not going to count at the end. Like you think it will.

Speaker 2: Right. Right. And that's the whole reason skating. Who does what it does because we can't take the money with us. So let's help as many people as we can before, it's over.

Let's help people. That's all that matters. Mm

well, I always have a final thing I like to tell people and it's that you're worthy simply because you exist. And as long as you have breadth, you have purpose and personal level in business and a global level, you have a [00:57:00] purpose simply because you draw breath.

Speaker 1: Thank you for being here.

Speaker 2: Yes, ma'am. You have a good day.

Speaker 1: You too. Bye bye.