Are The Holidays A Time For Celebration or Depression?
Jesse Ferrell and Shondell Newsom argue that holidays become what you choose them to be. Shondell shares how his diabetes diagnosis shifted his perspective on gratitude. They discuss concrete practices like year-round reflection and tracking wins to counter holiday depression and commercial pressure.
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Foreign.
Welcome to our Brothers in Conversation podcast, powered by Jesse and Shondell. Shondell, you are from Bed Stuy do or Die Brooklyn.
That little town.
That's a little town that's nothing like Hawthorne, Nevada. Population 5,000 cats and dogs. Welcome to our Conversation podcast, powered by Jesse Farrell and Shondell Newsom. You're in the house. And Today is Thursday, December 19, 2019, episode 16. And we are going to be broadcasting live as always. And our title today is Are the holidays a time for celebration or depression?
Yeah.
Are the holidays a time for celebration or depression? Yes, that is exactly. We're going to vibe on and we're going to create a great conversation.
And.
And we want those of you out there watching or listening to share your comments along the way. And we may take a break and see if Lisa has things that she wants to communicate to us, that you want to communicate to us, and that's how that's going to work. So is this working fine? So I can hand this off?
Yeah, that's good. You got your watch party.
I can hand that off to you. Shondell is bringing his expertise and he's a singer, too.
Yeah. He's got a little Teddy this morning.
Teddy. And he's got Luther Vandross in him as well. So let's start this conversation. Are the holidays a time for celebration or depression? Now, you and I, before we dig into that, you and I were having a conversation, as always, in the green room before we came out.
We're always doing it right.
And we were talking about what matters most. And we were talking about you had a challenge a couple months ago where all of a sudden you came down with this illness.
Yes.
And it was heavy. Like it stopped you in your tracks.
Yeah, it beat me up.
Tell us what happened with that, because then we have one of our partners that came up sick, and that's where this convers came. And I'll tag in after you.
Well, you know, I have type 2 diabetes. Okay, let's start with that. So.
So how do you manage? What does that take to manage?
So to manage it? For me, it's always been diet and exercise.
Exercise is easy for you.
Yeah.
But the face control is not as easy. Because if you like food that tastes good.
Yeah, you want it. Right. But. But really it became a lifestyle. So it was easy.
You made the choice.
I made the choice. The challenge is whenever you become ill, it's hard for you to follow that regimen. So I eat six times a day.
Small, tiny, small bills.
Yeah. Very small. I eat a very decent breakfast snack in between, decent lunch snack in between, and then do dinner, decent dinner snack afterwards, later, toward the evening time. Wow. But because of what you're talking about, in October I had, I came down with a touch of the flu. Once I come down with a touch of the flu, it impacts everything internally. So my blood Sugar rose above 400.
Right. But let's be real. You coming down with the touch of the flu is different than me coming down with the same touch of that same flu because I don't have type 2 diabetes. And so even though it may take me down for the count, it's much a bigger wallop for you because it's impacting that other challenge that you're already managing.
Much bigger.
Correct.
Much bigger.
Like 5, 7, 8, 10 times the magnitude.
Yes. Right. And my doctor says this. Most people can get away with, you know, being overweight, being obese.
Okay.
Most people can get away with not working out.
Right.
And really walking around with these big old pot bellies or whatever. You are one of those people, unfortunately, that has to be somewhat perfect, otherwise it will mess up your whole body.
It's going to negatively impact you further.
And here's the, here's the thing that people have to understand about diabetes. Diabetes has a lot of side effects. So blood rush, blood flows throughout your entire body. So he said most people don't, don't think about this, but think about your brain.
Right?
Right. There are a lot of little blood vessels. Always your brain.
Sure.
If your, if your blood is not right, that impacts your brain.
Right.
It impacts your feet, it impacts your hands. You know, I keep.
Impacts your brain and that it's not getting the nutrients or the, or the flow. Well, probably. My guess is it probably cuts something off, short circuits, y. Something. And that short circuit could be a manifestation of a number of different ways. Whether it's memory recall.
Yes.
Recognition.
Yes. You know, I thought my father at times was just unreasonable, but he was just. It really. He was a type 1 diabetic. So at times your, your mind start. Like when they say your mind's playing tricks on you.
Right.
It really does play tricks on you. It really does make you look at Lisa and go, lisa, I can't stand you right now.
Yeah. For no reason.
No reason at all.
She didn't earn it.
Not at all. And, but, but, but in your head it's rationalized. And people don't see that effect of diabetes.
Oh, I didn't know that.
Yeah.
I never even heard of that before. Wow.
Well, the doctor Told me that I didn't realize until he said, hey, you gotta understand, blood flows through your entire body, right? So everything is impacted, everything matters.
So when something like that happens, it's a big impact. That impacted you personally, impacted your relationships, from your wife to the children to the business partners to the business presence in that business. We had. You had to shut that down in order to recover our part, one of our very, very important partners just became ill. I won't say her name because I didn't get permission, but she became ill. That she did not expect. Super, super healthy person. And it completely. What you and I said is when something like that happens, right. You begin to. Not everyone, but some of us will look at life very differently. You start to measure what matters most. And before that, illness, the things that were important to you may not be important at all in the scheme of things. When you look at how it lines up with what's going on with you right now, like, it changes you. Why do you think that is?
Well, I think everything changes you because now you get a chance to reflect. You get a chance to sit back.
Funny you should say reflect.
Yeah. You just keep thinking about it.
Keep, keep your thought. But I'm going to come back to reflect because you made a major point. You get a chance to reflect on what and for what reason?
Well, you get to reflect because now.
You do you get to reflect or do you choose to reflect?
Well, I choose to reflect and I choose to reflect because now I am now. Now I'm really thinking about all the things that matter to me in life. What's important.
Why?
Because you're in that moment of, you know, really, honestly, you're saying, am I going to live or die?
Right. Am I going to make it?
Am I going to make it?
It's rather than just existing. It's very different than just existing.
Right. It starts to make sense.
Yes.
Right. It's like, I totally understand now. I know, am I going to live or die? Am I going to have a chance to atone, do all the things that I wanted to do? What's, what's the problem? What's, what's the challenge? What am I going to be able to do?
Right.
So you start, you start thinking like, so you.
So that makes you think differently.
Yes.
And so when you're thinking differently like that, you begin to shift priorities.
Right? Right.
Right. Lisa and I always say we live in a world of shifting priorities.
Yes. All day long.
We say that all the time, but most of us don't live it. That Way. Let's go to the holidays.
Yeah.
So. So great sharing on that part, 100%. We're going to come back to this point that you talk about. Reflect.
Yeah. You.
You choose to reflect.
Yep.
Some people don't. If they don't choose to reflect when, When a. What seems or feels like or might be a life or death situation impacts them, they don't choose to reflect. What do they typically choose?
Depression.
Funny you should say that.
And I think it's like this. It's like my father passed away in 2009. You do have a moment of reflection and you say, my father loved the holidays. I remember times when he and I went out in the middle of the snow and he. I remember he found a La Z boy that was broken down.
Sure.
We dragged it back to our house, put it in the house. He reupholstered it, fixed it up, and, you know, he thought it was the biggest thing in the world.
Right.
That was one of my most memorable Christmas days. And. But I can remember even him with my kids and the Christmas times we had a Christmas, going to New York and spending time with my father.
Right.
The interesting thing about all that is I can easily just become so depressed over not having those moments, but I choose to celebrate those moments.
Okay, so the key words you've said so far to me are choice or choose. Same thing. And reflect.
Right.
Those are so far the two most magical words. And oddly enough, in your sharing, we're talking about celebration or depression.
Right.
Actually, I won't say that all depression is a choice. Sometimes it's biology driven, where the things outside of your control that's forcing you or pushing you into a space of depression. So we have to have some respect for that. But a lot of us choose ourselves into this space of depression as well, like you just said. And so for many people, the holidays, which we all seldom like, is supposed to be time to celebrate. But sometimes for many, many, many people, it's a darker period in people's lives. It's not a celebration. They may play the celebration card or they may fake the celebration, but you can visibly see that they are depressed, they're in a state of depression, or they're, they're frustrated or they're angry or they're. They're lost.
Yeah.
Or they're, they're missing people that are no longer here on the planet.
Yep.
At this time of the year. Why do you think people choose that?
You know, I think. I think the biggest problem that we have is people, most people don't know how to cope or deal with life situations. You know, you and I, we talked about this.
Sure.
Off cameras.
Sure.
We look at things from a whole different perspective. We're looking at it from a perspective of what's the best solution to what the situation is right now.
Right.
Most people live in. Live in. I don't know what that space is called, but they never want to come out of a mode where they have the victimization.
And I know what that space is called. Most people live their lives through what has happened to them.
Lisa, can you move this? I can't get on.
Most. Most people live their lives from what has happened to them or what is happening to them.
Right.
That's the space that you said you couldn't put a name on it.
Yeah.
That's what it is.
Yeah.
You and I have. Things happen to us.
Right.
And there are things that are happening to us as well. We're no different.
Right.
But we made a choice. Choice is another. Here come that word. Choice again. You and I separately, not to get. We're together now, but we made these same choices. Not even in the same space years ago, we made a choice to live our lives. When something has happened to us or is happening to us, we immediately assess the situation and then determine what are we going to do about what has happened or what are we going to do about what is happening.
Right.
Most people get stuck in what has happened.
Right. Right.
And they play the woe is me card.
And I'm so glad you brought that up because I had this conversation even with, you know, and you and I have talked about this before, and this is. This is a little bit off of the holiday topic, but in black America, I mean, let's just call it like this. Right. So Black America says we should be focused on what was done to us.
Absolutely. Hold on, Lisa, you trying to say something?
You're good to go. Oh, perfect. Thank you, Lisa.
Okay. So sorry to interrupt you go back. So Black America, when you say that, what you're really saying, let's clear it up, you're talking about what's typical nature in the black culture.
Yes.
That's really what you're saying.
So we want this sense of this has happened to us, so we need to be up in arms about this happening to us.
Right.
Those of us who choose a different way say, I understand what has happened, however, what are you going to do about it?
Exactly. And quite frankly. Yeah, I'm with you on that, Shonda. I say that, as do you.
Yeah.
The other thing I say to Myself is. Look around.
Yeah.
I believe I say it this way. Everybody has their own cross to bear.
Yes, yes, yes.
Being black in America is just one cross to bear.
Yeah, yeah, you can.
If you're fat in America you're going to have problems.
And guess what? Here's the thing. We're not saying, we're not saying it's not a heavy cross.
No, it's. No, no, it's heavy. It's heavy, it's heavy. But you know what? That's, that's, that's my responsibility. This around.
Exactly.
That is. That, that is, that is my cross to bear this time around. That's my way to upscale up level. And quite frankly I think it's there for a reason. But I'm gonna, but I wanna, but I wanna say it's not just a black culture thing. And I know you're not saying that it's some, everybody's too something for some forever for someone. Too tall, Too short, too too good looking.
Yeah.
Too beautiful. Too ugly.
Yeah.
Too too thin.
Yeah.
Too fat, too too smart.
Yeah. Me. Yeah, that's you. Yeah.
You're not too dumb though, right?
No, never too dumb.
Right, right. But am I wrong or right? Isn't everybody to something for somebody?
Absolutely. And that's that, that's my point. My point is, is that we have, we all have these crosses to bear to some people and, and here.
And so how are they, how are they handling that? Are they stuck in what has happened right from being to something or whatever. Or they decided to make a choice to say I'm gonna move through this and I'm gonna use this situation to level up my game.
Exactly. And that's where it all comes from. And I'm gonna tell you where it comes from. It came from my grandmother. When I was a little kid, my grandmother. Here's the funny thing. I grew up in a family full of light skinned people.
Okay.
Everybody thinks they're freaking Debarge or whatever. They.
And Debarge is a singing group if you don't know. The Barge. Good looking people. The mulatto family. The father was Caucasian, the mother was black.
Yeah.
And they're all very, very light fair skin and very talented family.
So everybody, everybody thought that, you know, they're like, wow, look at these guys. So my grandmother when I was born and I didn't know she did once when I was born as early as I can, remembers being like 4 or 5 years old. She would always greet me the same way. I love you because you're my very Special chocolate child. You are so beautiful. You are so gorgeous. She would make a big.
She made sure that you understood that the fact that you do not have light colored skin.
Yeah.
Doesn't make you less than any of the rest.
Oh. In fact, she takes. She went the opposite. She said I was more special, I was more gorgeous.
And you believed her. And you believed her.
Because she's pounding this in my head. So my wife said, where does this arrogance come from? Until she talked to who?
Yeah.
My grandma.
Yeah.
My grandmother said, well, I'm sorry, baby, I put that in his head. And even stuff.
But your grandmother was brilliant because she knew society was going to kick your butt with all that dark skin. Yeah, she did. In fact, not when I say society. Let's don't blame it all on society. And white people. Black people do it to each other.
Black people are the worst.
Do you. Do you know the brown. You familiar with the Brown Paper Bag club?
Yeah. Yeah.
Come on. If your skin color is not lighter than that brown paper bag, then you're not in. Seriously?
Absolutely. Yeah. And so even going back to the holidays. Let's talk about this. A lot of times people are in depression because of their circumstance.
Yes.
Right?
Yes.
So my circumstance is. And Arlene says this, too, because we were in a situation where when we brought together our eight kids, I got out of military September. Yeah.
Blended family. Bringing it together.
We decided that we were going to take some time and really focus on our careers.
Right.
So we didn't want to. I didn't want to rush out and just go get a job.
Right.
So we said for six months, I saved up some money that we told our kids. It was so. It was so crazy. All kids got two, like, fun presents, and then the rest were, like, gloves, scarves, underwear, clothes. We got all of that stuff. Now, people today, the people make themselves depressed over having to buy things for other people.
Okay.
They become very, very depressed. I have friends who say if I can't buy anybody anything, I'm very, very depressed. And Arlene always warns them and say that should not be a reason for depression. Even if you give them a card, even if you make something on the on, even if you just tell them merry Christmas. Fine. But don't let that be a moment of depression.
Yeah. Because you're creating depression. It's not just happening to you. You're actually creating it again by what you said earlier. By choice.
By choice.
And you don't even realize that you're doing that.
You don't.
Right. You don't Even realize you. But. But you. And it is creating a depression.
Yes.
And funny you should say that because Lisa and I managed the holidays differently. I'm not saying we're the only ones to do this.
Right.
But I haven't. No one ever has shared with me that this is what they do, but I'm sure others do it.
Yeah.
What we've done in the holidays is the holiday period for us. And I'm gonna say something, and it's not intended to be disingenuous to others that are participating in the holidays. I cast no judgment on that. If that's what you do, gift giving, presents, you know, dinners and breakfasts, whatever you do.
Right.
Nothing wrong with that.
Yeah.
What Lisa and I chose to do. Choice again for the holidays. We use the holidays as a point of reflection. Like you said earlier, we literally call it reflection. Yeah. And we use that time to reflect on the accomplishments, the gains, the wins, the positive stuff that has happened throughout that whole year. We literally talk about it starting from the week before Thanksgiving to the first week in January. That's our period of reflection.
Yeah.
And we actually pull back our giving.
Yeah.
We don't stop giving. We pull back on the giving.
Yeah.
And we let all other people that are competing with giving.
Yeah.
Thanksgiving and Christmas competing with gifts. And we let them do that.
Yeah.
We pull our game back. Slide in the reflection. You guys give. When you guys done. When you guys are done with the season of giving.
Yeah.
We kick in the heart heavy giving and we give all year long. Why other people are not practicing that? Let me stop talking for a second. What do you think about that concept?
You know what? I think that's a great concept. And I'll tell you, Arlene and I have always decided that we remind people of giving all year long during Thanksgiving. We say, you know what, it's cool that you want to celebrate one day, but you should be doing this all year long.
Funny you should say that. We don't say that to people. We model it.
We definitely tell.
We don't say it, but we model it. Because I think people. I think it's a. It flips. It flips the concept.
Yeah.
Really?
Yeah.
And so the other thing is what. How we used to do it in the. And years ago, we used to. I will say, okay, let's get reflective period. So now let's start. Let's write down and reflect all the stuff that we would try to. We beat our brains out trying to remember all this, that, this, that.
Yeah.
And one year about. I said probably four or five years ago, Lisa says, why do we wait to the end of the year to write it down? Why don't we write it down along the way?
She's the brains of the outfit over here.
I went, holy smokes. I never thought. She says, why don't we write it along the way? And then when we get into the season, then we just read them.
Yeah.
I thought, holy smokes. Do you know our reflections, like tripled?
Yeah.
When she said that. And so another way we use reflections is if. If we're getting our butts kicked by life in some fashion.
Yeah, that happens.
We go and read the reflections up to that point. And when you read about four or five of these, whatever's causing you challenge is minuscule compared to what you've already accomplished. But you don't think about it. We forget about it. Do you agree?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, you know, here's the thing. Like me and Arlene, we practice this all year long. Is number one as Christians. What we do is we celebrate the birth of Christ and everything around it. Everything has to do with Christ being born and the sacrifices that God made to his son. And this is the place we come from. And also when we talk about giving, we talk about giving in a sense where it's an organic. It's really not a giving of. Oh, I'm gonna show you up. You know, like the commercial with the Nerf gun. You ever seen that commercial? Yeah. Where one. One mom brings in a Nerf gun. That's the little one. Then somebody brings in a big one.
Right.
Bringing a big one.
Right. That's what we call competing.
Yeah, we're not season of competing with gift giving. We're not into that.
No, we're not either.
And that. That goes back to again. And I got. I have to give my wife credit on that. It's like one. One time, my son Thomas. Who Thomas. Every. Every year, no gift was good enough for him. I used to tell him that all the time. I said, but now. Now that you got your kids right? Let's see if you gonna shower gifts. But he's not even close to that.
Right.
So we talk about that all the time. Like, how do we. Christmas for us, even in that year when we brought the families together, was not about participating in the commercialism. It was about being thankful for what God has given us. God has brought this family together, you guys. This is who we are. And so if you got two gifts each and you got clothes and you got sho and you got stuff, this is all what you should be grateful for.
Yes. I love, I love the fact that you guys bring in gratitude, because that's the part we haven't spoken on yet. And that's a huge part of what Lisa and I are doing, too, during this period of reflection. It's, it's, it's, it's. It's really steeped and couched in gratitude.
And I'll say this, being grateful. I think a lot of people today, and my grandmother's called is Keeping up with the Joneses.
Yes.
Right.
Yes.
A lot of people want to, you.
Know, drive the same car, the same neighborhood, wear the same clothes.
So what happens during the holidays is people want to have the best Instagram story.
Okay.
The best Facebook story. And some people that I see on Facebook, honestly, I'm saying there's no way they can afford this. Or there's. And so when you later on see them depressed or you see. You see people who have been taking lavishing trips, and then later on they're. They're busted, you. You start thinking like, are they depressed because they can't do those things anymore? Are they depressed because they're not able to afford those things? And see, that's the issue. A lot of times it's like we become depressed over things that are superficial.
And even if they're not depressed, they may be highly stressed.
Yeah, very much stressed.
It could be a combination of depression and stress, either or both.
Because don't you think that, like you said with Lisa and myself, when you. When you have to reflect on things because you're ill now, you're looking at things that matter versus things you looking.
At things that matter most, care about.
All that stuff, the commercialism, the sensationalism, all that stuff goes out the window.
100% agree. You focus on what matters most.
Yeah.
And quite frankly, that's what we've done with the whole reflection piece, is to be able to return to focusing on what matters most. Because as human nature goes, we remember the heavy negative stuff and we forget the great positive things. We forget the wins. And our wins are not just about our wins. Our wins about wins for clients, wins for companies, wins for families. If we're involved in anything that helps, even as a catalyst to help them get a leg up or level up, we reflect on those are big wins, too. We consider those big wins. And so, and I'll stop on this. I'll do my best to not keep going back to this reflection thing, but we were reading the reflections. We would. She'll read three or four, and I'll read three or four back and forth and we'll. For maybe 15 minutes or half an hour, then we stop. Yeah, well, I got this idea this year and we have a brother in law that is a voiceover specialist. He's got an incredible voice. We hired him and I have them all separated by years, so I sent them to him. We hired his services because we want to hear his voice with the reflection, not my voice.
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