My coach frames everything from the perspective of commitment. And if you think you understand commitment, let me tell you something, his definition (and getting committed to REAL commitment) could change your world.
See, it’s easy to “commit” to things you know you can do. I can confidently sign on to say, throwing a football 20 yards. That’s not commitment. That’s just doing.
I can similarly not get behind the idea of doing something I know I can’t accomplish. Like throwing a football 100 yards. It would be silly for me to suggest I would ever be able to accomplish that feat.
But where real commitment lies is in the in-between. That space where we get out of our comfort zone and start to wonder, “Could I actually get this done?”
And I would say, “What if you committed to it?” What if you got really comfortable with the idea that you were going to go places somewhat outside of your zone of comfort.
That’s what today’s guest on Relish THIS is doing.
Steve Bacon is a remarkable, passionate, authentic human being who has committed himself to making enormous changes in the black community. His goal is to make sure that this is the LAST generation that has to experience the ingrained belief structure endemic to his community.
Steve is the Master Teacher and Coach at Belief Theory and in this episode we discuss taking passion and authenticity to the max and how to use those qualities to push yourself to make change.
Warning, there is some NSFW language and potential triggering content in this episode so please be advised. That being said, I think this is an important conversation and well worth the listen.
Hope you enjoy our conversation.
Link:
Belief Theory
Ask:
Stop looking everywhere else for problems that come from within
Listen to the podcast here:
Steve Bacon: A lot of times when people teach and they don’t, they’re not effective when they teach it is because they try to speak to people from where they think they should be and not meeting them where they are. Right. And I tell this to people all the time, even well-meaning black folk and white folk, stop trying to stop, trying to stand on your high mountain and tell people they should be up here.
Take your ass to the bottom of the. And show them how to walk up the mountain step by step
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Now here’s your host, author and marketing specialist, Stu Swineford.
Stu Swineford: Hi RelishThis listener. Stu here you are in for a treat today. My guest is Steve bacon and he is the founder of Belief Theory. He’s a master teacher and coach, and he is seeking to make huge changes in the black community in terms of the historical baggage that’s been passed down from generation to generation.
He wants to make sure that this is the last generation that has to experience and, and have the kind of ingrained belief structure that has been endemic in that community for for the last 400 years.
Steve’s one of the most authentic people I think I’ve ever met—certainly one of the more authentic people who’s ever been on the show. And so there’s some language involved in today’s episode, as well as some triggery stuff, but I think it’s very well worth the listen. Steve’s passionate. He’s out to change the world. And I think you’re going to love this episode.
So listen up and here we go, Steve, how are you today?
Steve Bacon: Incredible. If I was doing any better, I’d be jealous of myself. What’s happening.
Stu Swineford: Well, I am so excited to talk with you this afternoon. And you were introduced to me by a mutual friend, Townsend Wardlaw. He was on the show a few weeks ago and He is just the best. And I would, I would love to have you do your introduction of yourself because I know that you do something quite special.
So why don’t you hit it?
Steve Bacon: Absolutely. Wait, what up Relish THIS family.
Stu Swineford: That is awesome. You’re the first guest to bust that kind of action out. And I am excited for our conversation today.
Steve Bacon: Listen, I hope you pre-warned your audience before you brought me on and listen, if he. Whatever you are offended by it’s his fault. He does not pre-interview me. He didn’t see how crazy I was before he put me on.
So, whatever it is, it’s his fault.
Stu Swineford: Well, I will take full responsibility for the next hour or so of everybody’s lives here, Steve, but I have, I was just thrilled to death to have you on, I know you are doing some amazing things. And Townsend has kind of teed me up a little bit for what you were up to, but I’d love to hear it straight from you what your mission is and how you are going to change the world.
Steve Bacon: Absolutely. So my mission is to end what I believe. Well not, I believe what I’ve experienced that I know has plagued the black community for. 400 years. And that is the generational trauma that we continue to pass down from parent to child, from child to parent and so on and so forth. And I’m every cell of my body.
Every breath I breathe is dedicated to not letting that trauma pass down to one more generation. And it started with me. And then I worked on my family and now I’m turning my intention on the rest of my.
Stu Swineford: Well, I think that sounds like an admirable mission. What, what are, what are some of the things that you’re doing to to combat this, this challenge?
Steve Bacon: So one is, as I go through my experiences and healing, the traumas that I had from childhood and things that were passed down to me, I shared openly with my audience. Like for instance, yesterday or day before yesterday, my dad and I just reconnected after 20 years of being estranged. And, you know, we spent about eight days together.
And then we went live on Facebook talking about everything that we learned about ourselves and each other during that eight day period so that we can encourage more sons to reach out to their fathers, invited.
Stu Swineford: Yeah, that sounds amazing. It sounds like you guys are really just jumped in the deep end there.
What, what was that? How did, how did you reconcile
Steve Bacon: compassionate and understanding? Man? A lot of people just like me, a lot of people convict their parents, judge, jury, and execute. As being superheroes who just decided to neglect them. I don’t know if I can cuss on this thing, if, just let me know. Cause I’ll have to censor myself, but
Stu Swineford: we haven’t done that.
But if you, I would like for you to be as authentic and free as you feel like, because there are
Steve Bacon: not better in a flow, but a lot of people convicted their parents, judge, jury, and executioner as to. Superheros who just decided to neglected them neglected instead of human beings that also have traumas beliefs and an entire fucking childhood that they were trying to recover from when they had you.
Stu Swineford: Yeah, we’re all kind of here based upon all of the experiences that we’ve had throughout our lives. And then, you know, as you’ve said, those, those experiences are kind of passed down, right?
Steve Bacon: Absolutely. You know, one of the things my father said during our interview was I was just doing the hand, what was done to me and we both said, Right.
We’re passing down culture and tradition, but not human development and education nobody’s growing. Right. And so, because of that, we continue not only to pass down our own baggage, right. When we have a child and we have our own baggage from our childhood, and then we have. Not only does that child develop their own baggage because that just comes with life.
But now we put our baggage on top of theirs and now they’re carrying Louis Baton, emotional, emotional damage all the way into their adult lives and then passing that on to their child because everybody’s afraid to take a look at themselves in the mirror and deal with the. And of course this generation confuses emotional avoidance with protecting my energy.
No, your chicken shit.
Stu Swineford: So how, what are you doing to disrupt this, this cycle, but what are some of the things that you’ve put together to help, help make this not happen
Steve Bacon: anymore? Well, first of all, I start off by telling you. And the reason why I do that is because nobody cares how much, you know, until they know how much you care.
And why would I open myself up to you if you don’t open yourself up to me. And that’s part of my issue with the mental health community. They’re literally trained not to open up and share their own experiences with the people who sit in, in front of them, that they expect to just open up and share all their darkest secrets with was, and I went through that and I was like, Hmm, I don’t trust you.
Because I don’t know anything about you. Right? And so the first thing I do is before I ask anybody to open up about themselves, I tell all my business, I tell them every dirty, dark, secret I’ve ever had, everything that I’ve ever felt, because I want them to understand I’m not coming from a place of just some book I read, but this is L E life experience.
I explain it to you this way. There’s a story I heard from a gentleman by Cain Ramsey. He says there was a man walking down through the woods and he fell into a hole. Then he started to scream out for help. And after a while this lady shows up and parks her chair at the edge of the hole and she says, sir, can I help you?
And he said, Ma’am I’m stuck in this hole. I don’t know how to get out. And I’m starting to feel a little anxious and claustrophobic, and I don’t think I’m ever going to get out of here. She says, well, lucky for you. I happen to be a therapist. And so she said, why don’t you talk to me for the next 45 minutes about how this whole, that you fell into is related to your child.
And he looking at her like what the F did I just tell you? I was stuck in his home.
What’d they got to do with it. But he had nowhere to go. And so he started opening up and then just broke down, crying. And then at the 45 minutes, she looked at her watch and she said, well, that’s our time. Listen, if you’re still stuck in this whole next week, why don’t I swing back around?
And we’ll pick up where we left off and she left, left this man shattered because he has any, has no idea what to do with the state that she just left. And so he pulls himself together and he starts crying out again, help, help, help. And a man shows up to the hole and he looks down in the hole and he says, sir, are you okay?
He says, no, I’m stuck in this hole. And this lady came and she made me talk about stuff I didn’t want to talk about. And now I’m not only feeling. Claustrophobic and afraid and anxious, but now I’m feeling guilt and shame from my childhood. And I don’t know what to do, what all these emotions and I’m still stuck in this goddamn hole.
Somebody please help me. He says, listen, listen, calm down, calm down. It’s okay. It’s okay. I happened to be a doctor. I’m going to write you a prescription and give you some stuff that help you with all these feelings that you’re feeling. And if you still feel this way after six to 12 weeks, you come back and see me and I’ll write another prescription.
And then he walks off and the man starts to lose hope. And he says, I don’t think I’m ever going to get out of this hole. And this lady just wants me to talk about my childhood and this dude just wants to drug me up and he gets into a fetal position and puts his hair between his legs. Next thing, you know, he hears a voice and he hears a voice and he goes, yo, you good?
And dude’s like, nah, man, I’m stuck down in this hole and nobody can seem to help him before he can complete that sentence. Do jumped down in a hole. And the guy looked up from, take his head from out of his knees and looked up and said, oh, what the hell is wrong with you? Didn’t I just tell your dumb ass.
I was stuck down here and the man goes, yeah, But I was stuck down here last week and I figured out how to get out. Let me show you. That’s what I do.
Stu Swineford: That’s a really great metaphor. I love it. I think that that there’s so much goodness there. You know, no offense to people who are, who are doing their best as, as therapists and physicians.
Steve Bacon: No, we’re not. We’re not letting nobody off the hook. Hell no, I don’t care. And let me tell you what. Because one of the things you don’t know about me is when I was 18 years old, I put a loaded gun in my mouth and pulled the trigger out of depression. So I’ve been at the lowest of the lowest that a human being can possibly be, where they believe their life has zero value whatsoever.
And there is no hope for the future. And I got an issue with those same people. That’s why I tell that story because most of them are wounded healers. They have never dealt with their own sh try to help everybody else. They read a book, figured out how to diagnose some shit. And that was it. And they keep people coping rather than healing.
So, no, I’m not fitting to let nobody off the hook, because if you’re not doing the work on yourself, then you are not doing the best you can to help everybody else out.
Stu Swineford: Point taken point taken. I really appreciate your, your passion around this and. And your perspective. It’s certainly not everyone has been in that, in that hole. And and yeah, I think that the, the fact that you’re out there really fighting that battle to really allow people to understand that they have someone there that can help them and is willing to help them and is willing to do everything that they can to, to make things better is incredibly valuable.
What are some of the things that you do with, with, with people to, to help them understand that? So
Steve Bacon: I coach mainly a one-on-one, I’ve also done some groups, but I do a lot of teaching to different organizations like YMCAs and boys and girls clubs and different cities working with. Their counselors and their teachers.
I also, co-run a drug rehab and post prison program in California, but I have clients that range anywhere from meth addicts to former police, captains, and PhDs and everything in between. Most of my work, like I said, has been done one-on-one or in small groups, but that has shifted since the, the towns in ward laws and the Steve hardens and those people of the world have gotten to know me.
You know, I spent a lot of time with one of my mentors or one of the people that I looked up look up to for years Mr. Les brown, who, you know, just on the phone today, it was just like, We need to get you in front of millions, for sure.
Stu Swineford: And
Steve Bacon: so I just been quietly doing my work, helping one or two people at a time.
I mean, not as in like a year, but my work is very personal because I take people through what I call a full. Self image reconstruction. And so I, I give you an example. Imagine watching the show, flip that house, right. And when they go into a house, depending on the condition of the house, they either have to just remodel it like, you know, do some new decorating.
They need to. You know, strip it down to maybe the carpets and the floors and maybe put up some new walls and then some of them, they need to just completely knocked down the whole damn house and knock it down to the studs. Right. And start from scratch. When I coach with people, I knocked them down to the studs and start from scratch.
Everything that they believe about themselves. I challenged, I bring it up and we challenge every value, every belief, everything that they were ever taught, because it’s the human belief system that controls everything that we do. But most people have no idea what it is. And that amazes me that the very thing that controls everything you do, you have no idea how it works, how it’s installed, how it’s uninstalled, how it’s used and how it’s used again.
So the first thing that we do is dig deep into their belief system to find out what is it that you believe? What are the meanings that you took away from old life experiences that has you believing that you’re not good enough? You’re not worthy. You’re not deserving because most of the time it’s all bullshit.
It’s perspectives from a child. You didn’t have enough life experience to explain some of the things that were happening, but because you’re a child you’re young, you’re emotional and you don’t have the life experience. You take everything personal and make everything mean something about you. And you carry that into adulthood.
And that becomes the foundation for what you build your life on, which is why you’re 40, 50 years old, but you’re still emotionally 14. You got longer arms and longer legs, but you’re still a kid.
Stu Swineford: Yeah, it’s amazing. Some of the work that I’ve done with Townsend, he has touched on this same sort of idea. That there was something that either worked or didn’t work that was implanted, you know, at a very young age that, that a lot of times becomes that default setting and that, that default belief that we have about ourselves that just continues to be that, you know, that Rocky ground in which all these weeds are, are kind of growing.
And if we can get to that and figure that root idea out. And, and then, you know, in his construct and he he’s learned this from Steve Hardison You know, we’re, we’re pulling that weed. We’re cleaning up that ground. We’re doing that hard work and then planting a new, a new plant, a new flower, whatever image you want to put there on, in that place.
But if we don’t get to the, to the, to the root of that, if we don’t dig deep enough, we’re just planning a new flower on top of a bunch of garbage. And so it’s not going to stick. It’s not going to stay. And and yeah, I mean, we all have our experiences. And as you said, we’re carrying, you know, the experiences that have been passed down through generations as well, just because, you know, that’s, that’s how we were all raised, but it’s, yeah, it’s really a really cool how you figure that out is what’s your process to, to get to that, to the, to those.
Ideas.
Steve Bacon: So I’ll start off by, by sharing our story, just to give your audience a real world example of what we’re talking about here, and then, and I’ll share how I get to it when I was eight years old. So my mom got addicted to crack when I was six months old, I went to 14 different schools growing up.
I was molested as a kid and I didn’t really know who my father was. He wasn’t around and whatever was going on between him and my mother. But when I was eight years, I never forget. There was a knock on my grandmother’s door and this Chico DeBarge looking, dude is standing there and he tells me you coming to live with me.
And I’m like, who the F are you, why am I going to live with you? And I’m looking at my grandma, like you really finna, let me walk out the house with this dude. And where’s my mama. Why she didn’t tell me this man was coming to pick me up. And who are you again? You might. And then he takes me to live with him.
Now, what most parents don’t understand and most people don’t understand is that we have this need for certainty as human beings. And we make everything mean something. And because in the black household, we have this rule or this tradition part of our culture that a child is not supposed to be seen or heard, or a child is supposed to be seen and not.
Which is really some old slaves to be honest, but because we believe that and that a child shouldn’t question adults, they leave the child to come up with their own meanings of what things mean. And again, with whatever little life experience they have. So when we experienced that level of trauma and for eight year old boy to be taking away from his mother with no notice, that is the most trauma that an eight year old boy has ever experienced a.
His mind took a snapshot. My mind took a snapshot of what was causing that, and that was the two women who claimed they loved me the most. And then my mind developed a strategy. Now I learned this all in retrospect, but there a time period, my mind develop a strategy, never trust a woman who says she loves you.
She will leave you and give you up for something. That’s the meaning that eight year old boy took away from this situation that became the foundation for which my relationships were built on. And so when I was 17 years old, I married the first girl who says she loved me. And then I beat her ass until she got the courage to leave.
I’m not proud of that, but it is a part of my story because I couldn’t understand why I was so mean, so angry. So. And saying that she was cheating on me every day when I really had no proof whatsoever. I had it wasn’t something I was consciously thinking. It was just a feeling that I kept having it. And I kept projecting that feeling on her ended.
I realized in retrospect that I wasn’t fighting my wife at the time I was fighting my mother.
And when I went to ask my mother, when I realized that. When I was about 28 years old, I said, my why’d you give me a, why did you do that? I said, I trace that back to what was the foundation for why I was so manipulative and mean and abusive towards women. I was really mad at you. Why did you give me a, and she said, boy, what the hell are you talking about?
And I explained to her what I meant. She said, that’s not what. She said you’re, you’re my sister. And then I found out when my, since my dad was here and your grandmother helped you, daddy tracked your daddy down and helped him file for custody because they thought you should go live with him. Then my grandmother called my mother and convinced her to come drop me off so she could watch me for the weekend, but really she was setting it up so my dad can come get me.
So here I am, 20 years. With the wrong perspective, meaning I just created the worst relationships ever based on a lie. I told myself yeah. For something that never even happened the way I thought it happened. So when I’m talking to my clients and I, and I helped them pull out whatever beliefs and negative thoughts they have, we go find the story to support.
I remember it was Tony Robinson said that a belief is like a table with four legs. The tabletop is the belief, but the legs of the stories. So we call it the belief theory. Court of appeals. You didn’t convict the Joe parents or yourself. Judge, jury executioner. Why you’re not good enough, but the judge was nine years old.
The jury is nine years old and the prosecutor nine years old. And there’s no defense. Right. So how about you bring all of your evidence to my courtroom and I’m poking holes in every last one of them damn stories. So when I’m done, you will feel stupid for ever believing that you weren’t good enough and you weren’t.
Stu Swineford: It sounds like some amazing hard work for people and and really interesting how you, how you break that down. So tell me a little bit about who your, who you’re trying to attract in terms of, of clients.
Steve Bacon: I am looking for black. Who believe what I believe that this generational trauma shit has got to stop because we are doing it to ourselves period, point blank in order for our culture to move forward.
Because here’s what I do know when black people heal. So will the world. You want to know why? Because the number one export out of America is. Think about it, hip hop hell in Japan. Right now they have salons where Japanese do to probably never even met a black person in their whole life is getting their hair Napa fide.
They’re taking their straight here and making a course so they can grow Afros and have fades like white people. That is our number one export out of America. And we’re exporting track. Because we have so many things that we need to deal with culturally that we have not. And it’s because we haven’t had the tools, we were taught stew that we were conditioned, but we were never taught how to recondition, if that makes sense.
Yeah. It’s like you’re being born and you were born with. And you were given the owners, man, and you were not given the owner’s manual to that car, but you had to drive that car your whole life. What happens when that car starts to break down and something starts to go wrong. If you don’t have the owner’s manual, you don’t know where to even look for the problem, let alone how to fix it.
If you do find it. So you leave yourself subject to people who hopefully have men, mechanics who hopefully have the owners may have. And you can trust that they will do right by you because you have no idea what’s going on. And then if you can’t afford them or you don’t trust them, then what do you do when the thing starts breaking down, you find ways to cope and deal with it.
Everybody on here has probably had a bucket or a Pinto before, you know what it takes to keep a car moving because you don’t have the thousand dollars to fix whatever it needs to be fixed, but you know how to keep it moving. That is what the black community has done for 400 years. Because we’ve never gotten the owner’s manual of how to heal ourselves, how the mechanics of the mind works.
We’ve just learned to cope and get along and move along. And that has to stop.
Stu Swineford: Yeah, absolutely. How, how are you getting that message out? What are some of the things that you’re doing right now with, with belief theory, to try to. Make sure that you’re talking to the right people and, and, you know, building a larger base of people who understand what the problem is at least.
Steve Bacon: Well, I’ll tell you what the truth is, is that we’re just now starting to figure that out.
Okay. My coaching for the last seven years has not been geared towards that. Although that has been what I’ve been doing because 90% of my clients were black, even though they were cops and PhDs and addicts and probation and single moms and business owners, most of them were black. And that’s exactly what they dealt with.
It wasn’t until the reason why you got to know me or you come to know me and I knew Townsend was because right around November, I slipped into a depression. Even though I had the greatest year of my life. I don’t know if you’ve heard this story or not, but I had the greatest financial year of my life, but I still slipped into a depression because I was still unsatisfied and unhappy.
And I couldn’t understand why and things started to kind of go downhill. And in that depression, I understood what it meant from reading the book. What is it called the happy pocket full of money. He says, depression comes from suppression of the soul’s desires. So I knew that even though I’m having a great year financially, my soul is still crying for something and I’m not listening.
So I sat down and I wrote, and I wrote 10 pages of whatever it is my soul wanted to express. And that was that manifesto that Townsend read that led to all of this that led to me talking to you, right. And when I committed to that, that, okay, God, this is what I’m going to do because you’ve been chasing me for 10 years, right.
There was a point about eight years ago, I’m at a conference and it’s 5,000 people, random seating. Ms. Guys behind me taps me on the shoulder at the end of the conference. And he says, I have a message. He says, God says it’s time to stop running from him and come home because he has worked for you to do.
And it didn’t trip me out until I looked at the man’s name and his name was the same name as the childhood imaginary friend that I had that used to keep me company in the crack houses that I was dragged to from year to year as a kid. And his name was Myrtle. How many people, you know, named Dan.
Stu Swineford: Exactly. I’ve never met him.
Steve Bacon: Imagine you have this childhood friend, imaginary friend named Marel and then 20 years later, some random dude named Marel shows up, taps you on the shoulder and says, God says, it’s time to come home. He got work for you to do that’s what the last eight years has been. Random messages like that.
And I ran from them until I couldn’t run no more. And then I finally submitted, said, okay, God, this is the vision you just pulled out of me. I will commit every last fiber of my being to making sure this happens before you call me home. And since then, we’ve been trying to figure out how to get that message out.
So I had to burn my old business down to the ground. Which was doing great financially, but I’ve had to burn it down. And right now we’re just in a space where I’m just showing up to wherever I need to show up. And people miracles just keep happening. People keep introducing me to this person and that person and this person and that person, people read my manifesto.
And they’re just like, where do you need help? What can I do? So right now, I’m just showing up and allowing miracles.
Stu Swineford: Well, it seems to be working for you. I mean, I would say that you’ve created that and I think Stephen, Steve Hardison and Townsend would agree that the, that this is a situation that you’ve created for yourself, where you have put yourself out there and are willing to have vulnerable, accessible conversations with a variety of people and, and allow miracles to occur or create those mirrors.
Steve Bacon: Right. And that’s why I want to give a shout out to Steve, Steve Hardison and tells award law because those guys, man have covered to my life in the last two months and really has taken my mind to another level of what’s possible. And Townsend has been knocking out a lot of cobwebs that I thought I didn’t even know were there.
Right. You know, I was just doing some of the homework he gave me right before we hopped on to this recording. And I’m just like, wow, I didn’t, I didn’t realize after 17 years of work on myself, how much, how many cobwebs I still had, but it was, it was little stuff, little stuff from again. And a lot of people don’t understand this that are not in the community, but you got to remember the slave was the, the, the, the way you got a large human being and a hundred of them to follow your, every word and command in feed.
From one, you know, little old white lady got a hundred muscle bound, black men that fear, every look that comes out of her eye there, they learn to break the mind without breaking the body. Does that make sense? Yes. Those traditions and teachings have been passed on for generations that was conducted. And I realized, and what Townsend is, I’m being completely honest with tiny towns in is helping me pull out is that old slave as conditioning, but it’s still in there that I didn’t even know was there.
I, I I’m, cause I’m very transparent. There was a time when Tony first met Townsend, this is what I’m talking about. When I first met Townsend and he started offering, you know, gifts. I should, I would say my coaching session was Steve Hardison was gifted to me by Townsville. And when he asked me, did I want it?
I almost said no. And let me tell you why, because I don’t trust a 45 year old white man to give me shit and not want anything in return because it has not worked like that. Does that mean. Yeah, absolutely. And a lot of people who are not black or conscious white will not understand that because they’ve never experienced that.
But in our community, white people don’t give black people shit. What, I want something in return or seeing dollar signs somehow. So I’m looking at him going, what do you want from me? That’s literally what I said to him. What do you want from me? I don’t know what you see, and I don’t know what you want.
But you gifted me something right now that I cannot pay back. And he says, why do you feel like you need to pay it back? And I said, because of the law of reciprocity, I said, if somebody give you something, they gonna want something in return of equal or more value. And he says, and you know, you’ve coached with Townsend.
I hate him so much for sadness. He goes, he goes, I want to hit him so bad. He said, I believe you believe that pitch.
Stu Swineford: That does sound like something.
Steve Bacon: I’m like, oh my God. He was like, I believe he believed that the being that you’re being right now, 100% subscribes to that. And I’m just like, first of all, I don’t know what the hell you talking. Second of all. What do you mean you believe? I believe that. And he says your idea of reciprocity is going to keep you from receiving blessings that are God directed because you feel like you can’t pay it back.
Sometimes people will gift you things that there’s no way you can pay it back. And they’re not looking for anything in return because they were instructed. By there being right. And I had that conversation with a friend of mine earlier today on the phone, because he was telling me about something, a favor that another guy wanted.
And he’s like the last thing I did for him, he really didn’t pay that back. And I said, man, I said, it’s crazy. And I told him this story. And I said, because where we grew up.
If somebody gave you something it’s because they want something in return. And I said, I almost blocked a blessing that changed my life because of old conditioning from our neighborhood. That one never to trust white people, it to don’t ever let nobody give you. Without giving them something in return.
So they don’t hold nothing over you, man. I don’t even know. 17 years of working on myself. I didn’t even know that there stuff that deep ingrained in my DNA that needed to be pulled out.
And so I tell people, I said, listen, I thank God for towels. And Wardlaw because he has a free mind. And he, he and Steve Hardison, y’all moving what they move in ways that I just I’ve even had other black people say who read the book and go, oh, if a black man moved like that, he gets. I’m like, damn look how deep rooted it is for us who can’t even read and enjoy the book.
Because the first thing we think is if a black man moved that free, he gets shot. Fuck.
Stu Swineford: So when your mind is changing that perspective, To start changing that, changing that throughout your community.
Steve Bacon: I don’t understand the question.
Stu Swineford: So if you can, if you can help the black community or even just a portion of that community, understand that it, that, that we don’t have to live in this, in this reciprocity.
Kind of world, but we can give freely and accept freely. Does that, is that the first step?
Steve Bacon: No, that is not the first step. That’s more like the 10th step 10 step. Okay. Because I’ll be honest, man. And, and, and I want people who listen to just to receive this. You can’t expect it a lot of times when people teach and they don’t, they’re not afraid.
When they teach it is because they try to speak to people from where they think they should be. Right. And not meeting them where they are. Right. And, and I tell this to people all the time, even well-meaning black folk and white folk, stop trying to stop, trying to stand on your high mountain and tell people they should be up here.
Take your ass to the bottom of the mountain. And show them how to walk up the mountain step by step.
Stu Swineford: Right. It’s jumping back in that hole.
Steve Bacon: Exactly. Jump back in the hole, but you don’t want to do that because you’re too high and mighty. And because you learn being and consciousness, that’s the level you want to come to people at?
They don’t understand that I was listening to a guy earlier talking about that and I’m like, What the fuck you talking about? Like, I know what he’s talking about, but I’m thinking from the mind of the, of the, the, the person that he really wants to reach, and I’m like, what the fuck you talking about being in consciousness and giving freely.
And I see you through me, they don’t understand that. Right. Let’s deal with the basics. How you feel about your mom and daddy, because that’s your self image. Let’s start there. Let me teach you by beliefs. Let me teach you about values. Let me teach you about perception. Let me, you understand. Let me give you the basics of the human mind.
Then once we graduate from I’m not good enough and I’m not worthy and you start to learn how to create yourself because you dealt with all the past bullshit it’s levels, this being stuff it’s amazing. And it’s changing. But bro, that’s level 10 to people who have no idea of what personal development is when I was growing up, personal development was for weirdos and white people.
You laughing, but I’m serious because our thing is, you’re not allowed to show weakness in our name. Right. You’re not allowed to show that there’s something wrong. A friend of mine just sent me a Instagram video of when you tell black parents that you depressed and, and the dude was a comedy sketch and the dude was like, the father walks in and says, you’re depressed.
Yeah, dad, I’m just not feeling so you better get your ass up and depressed them dishes talking about you depressed. That’s what it’s like, we’re not allowed to express our emotions. BMS, suck it up. If I give you something to cry for. Right. And the first thing you want to come talk about as being, making the fuck outta
Stu Swineford: here, right?
Steve Bacon: You better start off with some scripture because that’s where our foundation is. You better start off with the Bible and Jesus, if you want to win this audience,
So you got to meet people where they’re at. I don’t know if I’m too real for your audience, man, but it is what it is. I just tell the truth. I don’t try to sugarcoat anything.
Stu Swineford: I think that’s, I think that’s the way that, that that you should do things. I mean, that clearly is working for for you and your, your audience.
Steve Bacon: Oh, yeah. I’m definitely not for everybody that I offend. And
Stu Swineford: that’s good. I think that, I think that that showing that realness and that, and I’m assuming that you’re, you’re this authentic every everywhere you show up everywhere and allowing that to resonate with, with those people who get it today.
Allowing that to be a little nugget of a little seed that gets planted in the minds of those who maybe aren’t quite ready, you know, who let it sit and let them let, let it, let it grow a little bit. And then come back to you. Are you poor? Are you producing? Are you producing? Material around this. Are you getting this message out there for
Steve Bacon: four people?
Mostly what I’ve done so far since, you know, we’ve shifted our focus and his Facebook lives. I’m still I’m still waiting on instruction right too. And I’m talking about from my highest being. Got it. Yeah. Of what direction he wants to be to go. And it started off with, he gave me the next title of my book and who needed to write it and what was supposed to be in it and how we’re supposed to disseminate it.
And now I just got a commitment from Les brown to write the forward to it. Right. Which is dope. Cause I I’ve, I, I didn’t ask for that. Right. So right now, I’m just, I’m waiting for instruction. So people who are listening to this, you know, take the, you see where I’m at in 10 years, they’re gonna be like, mm, I heard it when it first started.
Yeah.
Stu Swineford: How are the Facebook lives working for you in terms of
Steve Bacon: pretty much how I’ve built my business for the last 10 years, to be honest. And. And it’s because I get on there, I teach, I share stories. I share my own stories that people hit me up and he’s like, Hey what you just said resonated with me.
And I like to talk further about that, or I’ll get booked to come speak somewhere. So Facebook lives have been my bread and butter for man seven years easy.
Stu Swineford: And I’m, I’m guessing that you’re very committed to doing those. An accurate
Steve Bacon: assumption. Yes. But I’m also open to other stuff
Stu Swineford: that, that wasn’t a leading question to derail derail you from doing that.
What I wanted to make sure of was if you have something that is working the best thing to do is to do more of that to start and, and enable that to, you know, To be as big as it possibly can be. A lot of times people are doing something it’s kind of working or it’s working well. And the. Nervous about the fact that they’re not doing something else.
And so then they start doing the other thing and it drops their ability or commitment to, to the first thing was actually working. And then they wonder why, why, why they’re not getting as many conversations going as they used to. And so just making sure that, that your You know, the, that the thing that, that is generating opportunities for you is something that you you’re continuing to do.
Steve Bacon: And yeah, I it’s so funny, you bring that up too, because I learned my lesson with that the hard way, man. Cause I was that shiny object dude. Right. Especially when you get to do Facebook ad or somebody goes and has a huge, you know, week or month or a year in their business and they’re like, I’m using this platform and then you’re just like, oh, I need to go over there.
Right. And. And I, I remember every time I would look at my business and go, why I made no money and I’m like, oh, I stopped doing Facebook lives. And so it just got to the point where I, I beat my head, beat myself over the head enough to know, just stick with Facebook lives.
Stu Swineford: Yeah. Yeah. It’s commitment, consistency.
And, and, and knowing where your audience is, is showing up.
Steve Bacon: Yeah. Cause even when I tried to go to Instagram live, it wasn’t the same. Facebook is just happens to be where most people that I reach are, I think it’s because it’s more of an older audience.
Stu Swineford: Do you typically work with older, older
Steve Bacon: people?
Yeah, my, my every now and again like this weekend, I have a 19 year old flying in from Canada. But most of my audience is between, or my clients are between 30 and 55. Okay.
Stu Swineford: Yeah. And are you boosting your Facebook live stuff or is it just an organic kind of audience that you tend to reach?
Steve Bacon: Okay.
All, all of the marketing stuff. I had to bring on other people for because
Stu Swineford: you’re working with somebody who has your back there. Yes.
Steve Bacon: When, and then once we get. Clear on what our message was going to be, because we didn’t want to waste money because I also done that as well over the years, right. Is just hiring people.
Who’d just be like, well, all right, let’s do this. Let’s boost this and, and, and no return, but it’s because I’ll be honest. I was not being authentic to myself as to who I wanted to serve. I was chasing the money and not the purpose, but once I decided to chase the purpose. All of a sudden opportunities come out of nowhere.
And I was like, oh, okay. Got it.
Stu Swineford: So that’s a pretty, pretty powerful, powerful lesson in shifts that that I think, I think a lot of people could, could benefit from from listening. Well, why don’t you say that one more time when you said it really
Steve Bacon: well. Yeah, I was just saying that it, none of it was working because. I was not being authentic to me.
I was not being authentic to what I was called to do. I was chasing the money. What, who’s the target audience that invest the most? And who’s the, yeah, none of it worked. This is why I didn’t feel right. And that’s why I didn’t work. And even when I did get some success in it, I was not fulfilled. I got some money, but I wasn’t fulfilled.
And then the minute I started being authentic to me and. That mother’s commitment that Steve Hardison talks about when I got mother’s commitment to what my soul was crying for and who my soul wanted to serve all of a sudden, I mean, my wife meets Townsend Wardlaw who introduced me to Steve Hardison have introduced me to all these other people, including you, including a yellow van Zandt who introduced me to this person who introduced me to it’s like, it’s like, God was.
Finally, thank you. Move the hell out the way and let me get to work. It’s like the
Stu Swineford: flood gates.
Steve Bacon: Go sit down. Finally. Thank you. All I needed was your commitment to sit your ass down. I got work to do, which is why it’s called a miracle because it’s inexplicably the way things, the way I ended up on your show right now, there’s no way I could have planned for that to happen.
Great. And so that taught me a huge lesson. Sit down and wait for instructions. And it’s not that you don’t do nothing. It’s you wait for instruction and you know, when you get it, we just ignore it most of the time. Right? It’s the difference between being, you know, on the ground, in the battle, fighting in foxholes and being stressed out and, and sleeping in, in, in, in intense, hoping that everybody’s watching your back because you’re afraid to get shot.
And then being that drone pilot, that’s in a different country on a safe base. Who just gets some instruction and says, here you go. And then they go do it home. And then they go home massive amount of impact, little bit of stress or no stress. That’s what it’s like when you do it, God’s way you can do it your way.
And you’re going to be out there in the trenches, you know, on the front lines and that can get worn out. You might get dead or. You could be a pilot and just do your job. Yeah.
Stu Swineford: How many how many one-on-one clients are you? Are you seeking to work with
Steve Bacon: this year? One-on-one no more than 10. Probably no more than six because what is being planned right now?
I’m going to have a very busy speaking schedule. Okay. And so, and the type of work that I do is extremely intense because when I devote myself to a client, they get all of me. And it’s because I’m, I’m pulling weeds pulled us really deep weeds and dealing with some, some highly emotional individuals Regardless of, again, I have PhD clients who have PhDs in psychology, who I have to do the same pooling of the weeds with.
Right, right. And so it takes so much out of me that I burned myself out in past years, which is why now, you know, Townsend is helping me find a way to do it where I don’t burn myself out. So maybe I can take them. Individually probably no more than six, but I’ll probably host a couple of group sessions this year and a bunch of teaching engagements.
Stu Swineford: Nice. Anything coming up in April that that we can let everybody know about
Steve Bacon: that I know of. Not yet. Oh, trust me to come, but not yet. No nothing in April.
Stu Swineford: I can’t believe that it’s been about an hour since we started talking, this has been so enlightening and so amazing. How can people find out more about you safe
Steve Bacon: right now?
We still have belief theory.com up. If they go there, that is also about to be changed. But for now you can still go to belief theory.com. So we’re in a complete rebuilding and restructuring right now. New website, new. To reflect our true mission, right? And, and I was afraid to go this route for so long, but now my entire brand is shifting to represent truly authentically what I’m after.
And that’s the ending of this generational trauma in my community. So right now people can still go to believe theory about. And they can find my Facebook from there. My Instagram from there I don’t have a Twitter but they can find that Facebook and Instagram and even a link to join our community, but that’s going to change as well.
Stu Swineford: Okay. Well, we’ll make sure we chase that down before the show goes live. That would
Steve Bacon: be great.
Stu Swineford: So I love having conversations. I am all about action. In fact, that’s one of, one of the pieces of my declaration that I’ve created for myself, which is I am unbridled action. So when we have these conversations on the show, I like to ask my guests, if there was one thing that you would have the listeners do after, after hearing our conversation today, what would that thing be?
Steve Bacon: You looking for one word. Nope,
Stu Swineford: one action. You would want people to take,
Steve Bacon: got it. There was a man walking down the street and he saw an old lady looking under a street lamp in the dark. And he said, man, what are you looking for? She said, I lost my keys. He said, well, where did you lose him? She said in the house.
He said, well, why the hell are you outside underneath the street lamp, looking for your keys when you lost them in the house. She said, because it’s better light out.
So the, the one action that I have to tell your listeners is stop looking out everywhere else for answers that only you have. That’s why you can’t find them. Put your big girl panties on and turn inward and deal with shit. It will save you a whole lot more time and effort and money. If you just turn inwards and face yourself.
Because that’s where you lost, whatever it is that you’re looking for.
Stu Swineford: I love it, Steve, that is a great story and a great metaphor and an amazing, amazing action for people to take is so I would encourage everyone to take Steve’s advice here and, and and look, look where the problem really. Thanks so much for being on the show today.
This was super
Steve Bacon: fun. Thanks for inviting me, man. I appreciate it. I did.
Stu Swineford: It was my pleasure. I will talk to you soon and there you have it. Another great episode of relish this. Thanks again for listening. You can find past episodes of the show@relishthis.org. And remember if you liked what you heard today, please subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to podcasts. For more information on. Grab your free copy of my book.
Mission uncomfortable. How nonprofits can embrace purpose driven marketing to survive and thrive. Get your copy now@missionuncomfortablebook.com. Thanks again for listening. Come back next week. Won’t ya.
