Bonus Episode 3 | Ray Leonard Jr: Navigating Legacy and Leadership - Mick Unplugged

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Are you ready to change your habits, sculpt your destiny and light up your path to greatness? Welcome to the epicenter of transformation. This is Myc Unplugged. We'll help you identify your because so you can create a routine that's not just productive, but powerful. You'll embrace the art of evolution, adapt strategies to stay ahead of the and take a step toward the extraordinary. So let's unleash your potential now. Here's Mick.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another exciting episode of Mick Unplugged. Where we shine a light on stories that inspire us to dream bigger and push harder. And today, I am thrilled to welcome a goat in life. Someone whose life is in. Their story resonates with perseverance, with leadership in the pursuit of excellence. He still has a baby Face. I'm not going to ask him his personal age, but we're here with the legend today. Everyone, join me in applause as we welcome my man, Mr. Ray Leonard Jr. Ray, welcome to Mick Unplugged. My brother. How are you?

Nick? It's an honor to be on here with you, brother. I know we've been trying to organize this thing for a minute, but glad we actually finally got it rolling.

You're a busy man, and I respect that. I totally respect that. So, speaking of busy man, let's just get into it. What is going on in the world of Ray Leonard Jr. Right now?

It's life. Like all of us, I'm trying to leave my mark, leave my legacy on this world, do some amazing things to not only change the direction of my family and the legacy of my family, but also help others to be better where they are in life. And one of the biggest things that I've been involved in is a venture studio called Nobody Studios that is trying to build a hundred successful companies or impactful companies over the next five years. And I'm leading these. The charge of one of those companies, which is called ovations.com. ovations with a c.com to lead that company into the next phase of how we actually function, how we hire people, how we are educated and grow our businesses in space, of how we, you know, use our mind. So we're not just learning from TikTok stars, or we're not learning from Instagram stars, but we're learning from people who actually did the work. And so I hear you can make $10,000 a month just doing drop shipping. No, like, we have real people that actually does real business to actually put you in a place that can give you the information to get you to right where you need to be. So that's been my biggest charge. Well, I'm sure we'll get into my past and history and everything else that I'm doing, but love you, brother. Love the platform that you built and what you're doing. So I appreciate being on your platform right now.

I appreciate you more than you know, man. And before we get into your past and you have a great story and legacy, you hit on something that I probably talk to people five, six, seven times a week about, man. Like, be careful what you're seeing on these social platforms, because everybody's not telling you the real story of how they got there. It's real easy once you appear to be at the top. And I say appear not real when you appear to be at the Top.

You can say a lot of things.

That sound cool and sound like, yep, you snap your fingers and it happens. The real world doesn't work that way. And so many people are afraid to do what you just said is the work. And the work never stops. The grind never quits again. That's one of the things that I love and I'm passionate about you and the things that you do because you're always working, you're always grinding.

I love it. And it's an honest place to come from. And I never want to give someone the impression of where someone gets to is easy and that there is an easy path to get to where you need to be, because there is not. Anybody can hit, hit the hit a lotto ticket and win for a day, win for a few months. But the reality of this, if you want to be successful and have a life that's actually meaningful, then you actually have to put the work into it. No matter where you come from, what your circumstances were when you started out, if you were on top of the world, or if you were in the bottom of the world when you started out. We all have a path in the journey that happens in our lives. And if you're not cognizant of that, if you're not looking at what you have to actually put in to have a successful life, or if you don't define what is success in your life even bigger, that becomes a problem and an issue that you will struggle with for the rest of your life. And so if I made a billion dollars tomorrow, would that change my life? No, because there's certain things in my life that I put a premium value on that doesn't have a monetary value on it. So when we talk about that type of thing, like, most people put a monetary value on every single thing they do in their life, but there's so many things that are valuable. So I am more wealthy than some of my people who are friends or who are billionaires or millionaires that have all the successful things that they think are successful, but they don't have the same kind of value in their lives.

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Go on tangent like that because it's important to me.

Same. That's why I brought it up, man. That's why I brought it up. And that's the essence of this podcast, right? Like we want to give people real life, real world things, right? Like life is what you make out of it. But you got to be willing to go get it and you got to be willing to go get it every day, right? And you have to be willing to go get it. Not letting someone go do it for you And a lot of us, unfortunately are stuck in that mindset of let me just tag along. It doesn't work that way.

Yeah, I mean, it's funny because I have friends from all over different job spaces. So I, I say that in a space because there's been a lot that's come out in social media about me and my family and all these different things over the last few days. So I say that with a grain of salt because there's certain values that people put on certain things in your life. What you hold dear is everything that you can obtain from a socioeconomic standpoint, then it's not going to be something that's going to be long lasting and it's not going to be here in your heart that what's something that actually gives you a value. So I say that from, from recent things that have come out.

Good stuff. So let's talk family, man. You brought up the legacy that you're trying to provide and live on for your family. And remember the 7Up commercial, right? That's when I first saw Ray Jr. So from the 7Up commercial till now, man, like, tell me whatever you want to tell me. What does the world need to know about Ray Jr. And those things that, that you endured as a child, those visions that you set for yourself to get to where you are today? Because again, it wasn't easy. I don't care where you come from, you still have to make it in your own way in your life.

That's a good question, man. Because my life is very skewed because my life is way different than the average person, which I actually thought my life was the same as everybody else because that's the only life I knew, right? So the thought process for me of having my life is different than what, you know, some of my friends have talked about it. When I went to college and I went on my own and I was always very independent. My parents were teenagers, My mother was 15, my father was 16. When I was born, Palmer Park, Maryland, we had nothing. My dad ends up winning the 76 Olympics and a gold medal. My mom was taking care of him. She was working two jobs. She's working at Arthur Treacher's and working at the gas station and taking care of my father so he could support his dream. But then, you know, four or five years later, he becomes the breadwinner. So things change up. But most people don't know that whole saga of what happened. For me, being in that space as a young kid and being kind of like a pawn in the whole mix of the marketing strategy, just say, look, we need to have a black family that is viable for corporate America. And that was my first experience into the media space. Because the 7Up commercial, I didn't want to do it. They had to bribe me. They said, I said, n, they'll give me a Honda 3 Wheeler. That's what made me do the commercial. Little did I know that that would be the bane of my existence to turn me into somebody that they thought I was a 7 year old kid for 45 years, but it's cool, whatever it is, I'd rather remember me than not know me, right? So which is cool to actually look back on it and to show my kids, to have these conversations with my kids. But the reality of it is if you don't have your own identity, your own space, I got to grow with Todd Bridges and Gary Coleman. I was in the same mix with all those kids who were superstars. I was on Jet magazine, I was on Essence magazine. I was, you know, the kid that people wanted to be like. But then when the reality sets in and the shadow comes in and it's like, all right, we're moved on to the next person or you are not as important as I thought you were at this point in time in your life. You have to have your own space that says that I'm valuable and I have this own identity. But for me, for me, unlike even my siblings, I have a brother and a half brother and half sister. They still struggle with figuring out their identity. For me, it was always me having the identity outside of my father. So I was a two sport athlete in college. I was the first person in my family ever to go to college. I was a D1 athlete. I was on the USA team for track and field. I had some really good, valuable things that I did in my life that most people be like, oh, this is really great. But for me it was like, well, I didn't win Olympic gold medal, didn't win six world championships. So am I valuable enough to, to say that I made a difference in my life? So it took me over 30 years to figure out my identity outside of my father. My grandmother named this Ray Charles Leonard Jr. So first and foremost we had to figure out if we could sing. My father couldn't sing. I could sing pretty decent. I do okay. But if you're constantly trying to level up and beat the person that birthed you into this world, then you have a hard way to move forward. But the reality of it is, is you have your own Space that you can really do something great. So me being the first person in my family to ever graduate from college was my gold medal. Me being the first actual business owner in my family and actually sell a profitable business was me being a person that had a world championship. It may not have been six. I just turned 50 in November, so I still have time to win a few more championships, but it's like I feel like I'm like Michael Jordan and LeBron. Right? So you still chasing those championships to say that you're valuable, but the reality of it is is you have your own path and you've done something that everybody should respect in a different space. So I'm sorry if I went on a tangent, but I'm a speaker. So you open the mic up, I'm gonna keep talking.

That's why you're hearing. And you know, I've listened to several of your speeches and again, that's why I adore the things that you do. And I'm not gonna say the things you overcome because every day people are overco, right? Like it's. You don't overcome life one time. And I think that's what's important for people to understand for you. And you were hitting on it a little bit. Pressures and the expectation that comes with the name. Was there a moment where maybe you felt it's overwhelming and then you had to dig deep to overcome that feeling or to conquer that moment. Do you have anything that comes to mind on that?

I'm going to give you like a game changing moment that I don't think I've ever said on any show any place before. Is my father after 1982 and he had a detached retina. He became an alcoholic. And he and I didn't hit it off well at all. We had this confrontational battle of meet the minds because we're both alpha males to have this whole conversation. And he was like, you can never reach the levels I reached. And I was like, I don't want to reach the levels that you reach because your levels are false fictitious levels that you've reached and you're not happy that you've been to this space. I was like, I'm gonna be a better father than you. I'm gonna be a better person than you. I'm gonna be a better leader than you. And no, you, you'll see it as you go forward. And that was like a transformational moment. That was the first time I confronted my father, who I was always scared of because like, this is welterweight champion, the world so what am I going to do as a 12 year old kid? But you know, I was rambunctious and I would stand my ground and that was the first time I stood my ground from a vocal standpoint to say that I don't need you, I respect you, I love what you've accomplished, but I don't need you because I'll be successful in my own right because I have my own mind, have my own space. It became a thing that now fast forward 30 years later that it's a respect thing between he and I.

There you go.

Because I've, I've never asked for anything from him, he's never given me anything. So just to clear it up for the whole audience, that I've never been given anything from my parents, you know, I found my way. I give that to my brothers, my sisters, to my kids who are in a space that we have our own DNA, we have our own lives to live and there's no one else that can match what we actually put out there. And your journey is your journey. Well, whether you have support from different areas, that's cool. But your journey has to be your journey and your path. And I won't let anybody else ever dignify or ever have influence over my path in life. And I think that's part of the reason why I have this peace in myself now that I didn't have for years because I struggle with mental health, struggle with now. How do I become someone different than what was ordained, than what my father has, has built because I can't ever get out of that shadow. But once I found my own voice, it changed the whole path of my life, my kids lives. I even think with, with my parents and my father's life because I'm the kind of the middle person that everybody goes through.

Wow, bro, I want to tell you I love you so much because you're invoking something in me because we have such a similar story in a little bit. I mean obviously my dad not, not famous by any stretch of imagination. But I think you of all people are going to understand what, what I say here. And this is something I haven't shared. You know, a lot of people know a little bit of my story and my mom is my heart. My mom was my because. And you know, there was a moment where she was going through financial, emotional, physical abuse with my father and I asked her to leave. Like, like let me deal with it, you leave. And she said no. And so she was like, we're all going to stick in here. Together. And so for me being the oldest, I was never enough, if that makes sense, right? Like, I can, I could never be enough. I could never do enough. And you know, you can make straight A's, you can be star athlete on the team, but it never was good enough. And so I didn't understand that until I had kids. And I was like, I can't do that. Right? Like, that's when I realized growing up in it, I didn't think anything was wrong, to be honest with you. Right. Like, I just thought that was a way of pushing and motivating me. But then I go back and I look and I was like, I was just never enough. And that's the fuel that made me who I am, is that fuel of wanting to provide for my mom, my sister, my brother. But also I don't have to be someone's enough. That's what drove me and that, and that's what I, I know you understand what I'm saying when I say that we just had therapy right here, ladies and gentlemen. I needed that.

I will give you this because a lot of people look at me and say, here, you came to the space, you were blessed in this. But I was the hard headed kid. Nobody's going to help me. And I went through a space where I had my family in the space. I lost two houses to foreclosure because I was super hard headed about that. I would just do what I would do, put my family in tough situations. I've never really talked about this, but I think it's important to give people precise information about where you are and where you can go in your lives. Early on I just, just thought there, you know, everything was going to work itself out and I could not just leverage, be a sugar, a Leonard son, or I'm this guy all the time. And I was super hard headed. I wouldn't take advice from anybody, I wouldn't listen to people. I would not take any conversation from mental health because I was like, I'm a dog. I'm always the dog. So you can't say to me that it's going to be something that changes my life. You find out. My grandmother used to tell me, a hard hair make a soft ass. I don't know if I can say.

That on here, but it's our podcast brother.

And I had to learn it, man. And it was a continuous thing. And I always talk about in my presentations is that like if you do the same over and over thing over and over again and get the same result, it's insanity. We are not monolithic people. We're not monolithic creatures. We. We need help. We need support from each other. We're going to have our down days. We're going to have the spaces where we suffer. Like, we all can fall down. We fall down when we get up, right? And so if I'm a person that was put on a pedestal that people look at like they had me on the magazines team, beat all that stuff on their wall, and to know that I'm not flawless, that I lose, I've lost. I've lost a lot. Now I have four kids that I'm trying to support and grow and put in spaces. My daughter was an educational scholarship to pepperdine university. She graduated. She's a marketing expert at walgreens, and she lives in atlanta, Georgia. She's a dog. My son's playing football at savannah state. He's getting his education. So I've had two kids, at least, that have gone to college and have space, that they're creating their own legacy. And I have two more who are 17 and 16, my baby girl and my son, who are excellent athletes. But we're grooming to be at the exceptional in something else other than just athletics. It's like, if athletics takes you there, that's fine. But the reality of it is, is what is your contribution back to the world? And what do you see your personal value and yourself being.

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And that's been the biggest thing, I think, especially from our black and brown community, that it's always a space of where we're looking to be included, we're looking to be accepted, but we're never able to show our exceptionalism.

I love that. All right, I know you're busy, so I'm gonna do some rapid fire and I'll get you out of here. So, college track and field, what was your event? Or what were your events?

I do this a lot of times. In my presentations, and first thing, people come out like, oh, you, you ran 100 meters or you ran this, or you were shot putter because I'm fat now, but. Or did this. They're like, you big. Like, all right. No, I was a high hurdler. I ran the hurdles, the 110 meter hurdles. I ran the 400 and 300 hurdles when I was in high school. Yeah, I was, I was really pretty good. You can probably still look up some of the records that I still have.

I knew the answer. I just wanted you to tell the audience because I knew that they were going to assume sprinter.

It's funny. I, I, we, we ran on the Maryland USA team. We had a transitional team to do Goodwill in Russia in 1990, I think, or maybe 1991. But it was me, Jonathan Ogden, Jermaine Lewis, who both played for the Ravens, and Marcus, yeah, that's my guy. But yeah, we all ran for multiple weeks over in Russia and in Spain, you know, amazing experience. I didn't lose ever, though, over there. So just to say that goat throwing.

It out there, dope. Never lost. I like it.

Well, I lost. I lost once. My 11th grade year, I lost once.

Truth comes out. One loss, one victories from there.

Yes.

If Ray Leonard Jr. Was going to be performing at the super bowl, what two songs you singing? Because I'm just giving you two songs at the Super Bowl.

I gotta sing Stevie Wonder, Higher Ground, because that's my goat of all goats. Steve won the higher ground. And then probably Otis Redding sitting on the dock of the bay, because that's the one song I know the whole all the words to.

All right, so we're gonna have a special episode of Nothing But Raylan. Sing it just so everybody.

There we go. It's just two songs. I know the words, too. And I just told you. I told you both of them.

There you go. All right, getting out of here. What are three things that you want the audience to to start doing today? To have a better and prepared life. What's three things people can do today?

So the first one is what my grandma grandfather told me and which is the moral of my whole life is when you know better, do better. So it's seek to be educated. Once you're educated about the situation, you take it and use it to your advantage. That was literally Maya Angelou quote, but it stuck for me and my grandfather, Navy veteran, Rest in peace, Cicero. So that is like the main thing that guides me in my life is every single day I try to be it. At least 1% better be better than I was the day before. So that's one thing. The second one is live it living your honesty and your truth. And that's the hardest thing for us to do because we all want to be accepted. We all want to be in a space where we're not judged. But the reality of it is our truth is our truth. And as soon that we figure that out and we learn that and we understand it, then we're able to live our lives in a space that is a lot more precious to us than living it for someone else. Okay, and the third one, this is. This is a tough one. And see, Mick didn't give me, like, these questions beforehand, so I couldn't have it already prepared. So this. This is off the top of the dome.

I like it raw and emotional, brother.

The third and last thing is, is to not be afraid. Don't live your life in fear of anything is to go out, be bold, be aggressive. Here's the weird thing. I was watching one of the Eddie Murphy's movies that he was. I think he was playing a pastor or something like that. And he was talking about, in our best case scenario with all of us, we have 75 years to live. We have 75 summers that autumn, 75 winters, 75 springs. And when you look at it, at that point, it starts to question your morality and how long you actually have. We always can put things off and procrastinate to the next day, but we're not promised tomorrow. I say this because, you know, my best friend in the world last year passed away. He passed away two weeks after he told me he was coming out to see me, to help me deal with some issues that I was doing. And I had no idea that he was dealing with issues that he was dealing with. And before he actually had a chance to fly out and be out here with me in California, he got rushed to the hospital. They said that he was going to be okay. They had these fluids and things like that. And then two weeks later, when they thought he was going back home, he relapsed and ended up passing away. And I take that, and I keep saying this conversation over the last past year like you don't know what your numbers can be called, but all of our numbers will be called. What are we doing in the meantime? And are we putting off what we can do today for tomorrow that will not actually happen? Appreciate your time, appreciate the moments that you have, appreciate the people that you have around you. Appreciate where you are in life. For it to make a bigger difference in where you actually want to go in life.

Ladies and gentlemen, a lot of wisdom, a lot of knowledge in everything that Ray just said. I think everybody should go back and restart this podcast and go back and pay attention to all the nuggets that he just dropped because I have at least a page and a half of quotes that I just wrote down. I don't even think Ray realizes he.

Is now a quote ologist.

I have several quotes and I'll make sure you get some of these, but these are amazing. Ray brother, I appreciate you more than you know. Can't wait to meet you face to face and in person and really just shake your hand, give you a hug man, because you've been an inspiration for so many people and I want you to keep doing that. So kudos to you my brother.

Thanks Mika. Great to be on here man. Love what you're doing. Keep it going. Sometimes we make a bigger difference outside of people that we don't even know. So keep it going brother.

I appreciate that. And everybody remember your because is your superpower. Go unleash it.

Thanks for listening to Mick Unplugged. We hope this episode helps you take the next step toward the extraordinary and launches a revolution in your life. Don't forget to rate and review the podcast and be sure to check us out on YouTube at MC Unplugged. Remember, stay empowered, stay inspired and stay unplugged. When the holidays start to feel a bit repetitive, reach for a Sprite Winter Spiced Cranberry and put your twist on tradition. A bold cranberry and winter spice flavor fusion Sprite Winter Spice Cranberry is a refreshing way to shake things up up this sipping season and only for a limited time. Sprite obey your thirst and Doug, here we have the Limu Emu in its natural habitat helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug Limu.

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