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Matt Rogers
This is Matt Rogers from Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.
Bowen Yang
This is Bowen Yang from Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.
Matt Rogers
Hey Bowen, it's gift season.
Bowen Yang
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Matt Rogers
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Matt Rogers
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Bowen Yang
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Matt Rogers
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Bowen Yang
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Shannon Sharpe
Want to sell your car your way?
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Who wouldn't?
Ed Helms / Kal Penn
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Shannon Sharpe
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Ed Helms / Kal Penn
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Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Want to think it over? Use OfferWatch to keep tabs on your.
Ed Helms / Kal Penn
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Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Want to drive CarMax pickup not available everywhere. Restrictions and fee may apply. See carmax.com for details.
Commercial Announcer
Okay, only 10 more presents to wrap.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
You're almost at the finish line. But first, There the last one.
Commercial Announcer
Enjoy a Coca Cola For a pause that refreshes.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
One of the biggest things that kind of breaks my heart with you is you've accomplished so much in everything you've touched. Transactionally, it has turned to gold. All the way down to the gold jacket. But like the fig tree, you still haven't found yourself. Mm mm and finding yourself takes the heart.
Shannon Sharpe
The mind replays what the heart can't delete.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Hello. It's time for the grown man in you to grow the up. All my life been grinding all my life Sacrifice hustle, paid the price wanna slice got to roll a dice that's why all my life I be grinding all my life look all my life been grinding all my life Sacrifice hustle, paid the price wanna slice got the roller I used to swap all my life I've been grinding all my life.
Shannon Sharpe
Hello. Welcome to another episode of Club Shay Shay. I am your host, Shannon Sharpe. I'm also the proprietor of Club Shay Shay. Stopping by for conversation on the drink today is a revered voice in popular media and academic circles. She's dedicated nearly two decades to transforming lives. A renowned life coach, a spiritual mentor, a psychology expert, a community activist, a motivational speaker, a culture change maker, influential brand ambassador, a producer, an author and a host. Here she is, ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Cheyenne Bryant.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
You know, that was good.
Shannon Sharpe
That was good. Did we do you justice?
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
It did me good. I love that.
Shannon Sharpe
Well, thank you so much. Appreciate you for stopping by Club Shay Shay. It's been a. It's an honor. It's an honor to have you here.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Yeah, it's an honor to be here. You know, I watch your show, obviously.
Shannon Sharpe
Thank you.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
I think you are a genius of what I just told you off camera, right? Yes. How you pose your questions. It ain't messy, but it's creative.
Shannon Sharpe
Thank you.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
And it's wordplay and I like it. So I'm excited to be here. Thank you. And be able to provide my expertise to your viewers.
Shannon Sharpe
But you're good today. You're good. You have a good space.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
I am so good. My book launched today. Literally today that we're filming. At least, yes. My book, Mental Detox, launched today. I got a double book deal, shout out to 50 Cent, Curtis Jackson for taking the lead on that with Random House, which is the biggest publishing company in the world.
Shannon Sharpe
Wow.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
So he believed in me and he took the lead and they said, well, we believe in her too. We love her. And so here I am with two book deals. My first book, Mental Detox, launches today and then my second book marches in 2026. So I'm excited. I'm a happy camper.
Shannon Sharpe
You'd like to toast this to the great congratulations. Two book deal. Mental Detox just launched and another book coming in 2026. Congratulations on all your success.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Thank you. Thank you. Well, I'm not a drinker, but this is smooshing. That's what I'm talking about, smooshing.
Shannon Sharpe
It's about to get good in here. It's about to get good.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
My chest ain't even burning this, but this is good. No. You know, dark brings. You sure you want this interview after this?
Odoo Advertiser
Dark?
Shannon Sharpe
That's what I'm doing, Dirk.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Make you go crazy. Okay, we gonna be tame.
Shannon Sharpe
We gonna be tame. We gonna be tame. The first hour. Mm, mm. No.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Now you ain't gonna tell me what to do.
Shannon Sharpe
Okay, okay, my bad, my bad. Let's go back. Let's start where it began.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Yeah.
Shannon Sharpe
You're a native Los Angeles?
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
I am.
Shannon Sharpe
As a kid, what was doctor, what were you like as a child?
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Was Cheyenne like?
Shannon Sharpe
Yeah. So what was Cheyenne like as a child?
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
I was always feisty and strong. Always an overthinker, a processor. I was naturally an analyst. I've always been the leader amongst my friend group who are also leaders. I don't have followers in my group. Everybody's leaders.
Shannon Sharpe
Everybody's a leader.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Everyone leads. I love that. We're all strong and we all are so solid and vertical within ourself that we don't need followers. We solid with the leadership. I was a product of teenage parents. My parents were 16 when they had me. They were high school sweethearts, and they planned me. And so I was a product of. Yeah, of a. Oopsie. Really? They said, hey, walking home from school one day. A true story. My father brags about it all the time. He says, baby, you were made from love. And he says, they were walking home and they planned me, and they can only afford a motel. And they went and paid for a motel, and they conceived me. Yeah, I was born. Conceived in a motel, y'.
Shannon Sharpe
All.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Okay, In a motel. And then, you know, and then here I go. And so my grandparents stepped in and raised me. Because my parents were obviously teenagers that didn't understand that, you know, you have to raise a child after you give birth. A child.
Shannon Sharpe
Cause they were basically kids themselves trying to raise a kid nobody had. Look, there's really no guide to how to be a parent. I mean, everybody thinks they had it figured out. But at 16, we're kids trying to figure out our life. And now we brought another Life into the mix.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
There you go.
Shannon Sharpe
And so, I mean, it's like you're growing up beside, like, your parents are like 20, you're a four or five year old, and you're like, is that your sister? Is that your brother?
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
And so we grew up together.
Ed Helms / Kal Penn
Yes.
Shannon Sharpe
What was that like?
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
It was actually. No, it was amazing. My father, he ended up being one of the biggest gangster and dope dealers in the South Bay area. And, you know, moving weight to the East Coast, Ohio being one of them, Youngstown. And I could tell it now because it's no longer going on, but he transitioned from being one of the biggest dope dealers into being one of the biggest entrepreneurs and a longshoreman here in Los Angeles, which is working for the port for 20 years. And I got to see him go from the hood to the hills.
Shannon Sharpe
Wow.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
And it was really beautiful seeing that. I mean, Shannon, we would come home days when he was in his gangster era, and I couldn't have a key to the house. I couldn't be there alone. And he would have to go in the house with a pistol first and check everything to make sure we can go in. I had the password to the safe that was in the garage, and so that if anybody came in, give them everything, you know, don't let them hold you hostage or do any of that. So I grew up a product of a street guy, a straight gangster who didn't play about me, who, if I made a phone call, he was going to air it out. And that was a luxury for me. And so I was on Sway's radio one time and he said, you know, Doc, you talk about your upbringing and your father and being the little girl from the inner city as though it was like an honor. You don't talk about it in a way that's like, you know, I came from the hood and it was all this adversity. It was adversity. But I'm a proud little girl from the hood, and I'm a proud product of a father who was a street daddy. I'm a proud product of a mother who, you know, also was in the streets with him. And if it wasn't for me being a product of them, I wouldn't how to create the peace and the tools that I have now to provide to my clients, to your viewers, to everyone else who follows me, because I wouldn't have had to bear crawl to understand how to get out this thing called the inner city. And I always say it wasn't me knowing where I was going, it was Me knowing that I had to get the hell out of there, right? And oftentimes I think of all ages, people get stuck in, well, I don't know where I'm going. What's my purpose? All you really need to know, Shannon, is that I don't want to go.
Shannon Sharpe
I'm not staying here.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
I don't want to be here. And that day that I realized that I put my track shoes on, even though people see heels every day now, and my track shoes are still on, I'm never taking them off. And I ran as far as I could. I ran into six degrees, three doctorates, a master's degree, a house at 19, my first home, a daycare at 19, three retail stores on Merrill's.
Shannon Sharpe
Well, damn.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
You was a professional student, but I was a professional student for a long time, and entrepreneur. But I really want people to know, and I know we're early on in the interview, but I want people to know who are watching that you do not have to know where you are going. You just have to know you want to get the hell up out of whatever you're in, whether it's a relationship, a circumstance, an environment. Just go. And when you start to trust God, he does something really special, which is ordering your steps. And as he orders your steps, and you stay vertical in who you are, and you lean on him and all your understanding, you nest in that word and you call him out on his principles that are in the Bible that He promises you. I'm telling you, God shows up and he shows out, and he does give you back the time that the locust and the cake and worms took from you. He really does give that back to you. So I want folks watching this to know that, listen, I was just a little girl in the hood. And I promise you, there was nothing around me not to put the people down around me. There was nothing in my environment that I looked at and said I want to be. There was everything in my environment that said, hell, no. Hell, no, and hell, no. And those hell nos got me to all my yeses. So I just want people to know that early on, because people look at me or you, and they're like, you know, they're way over there. I'm not way over there for people.
Shannon Sharpe
Right?
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
I'm still touchable. I'm still that little girl in the hood. I just happen to grow up and make different decisions now, but I'm still her. And I never, ever will not claim her. I never will not allow her to show up in a conversation and not Allow her to be in her abandonment sometimes. And I will always make sure she knows you can feel that way as a little girl. The woman in me. I have your back. And I'll knock everything off this table for you every time. That's what self love is. And I want people, men and women, to know that, especially within our community, because it's important that they see all, not just the healed. Dr. Bryant. Cause that's not where it started.
Shannon Sharpe
So you made a conscious decision that I'm not gonna be a product of my environment and I'm not gonna be my circumstances in which I'm currently in. You made that decision at a very, very young age. That you know what? Yes. This is my environment. I don't really see anybody that I aspire to be like. So let me get the hell out of here and find some people that I do aspire to be like.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
There you go. And I'm the oldest of seven.
Matt Rogers
Oh.
Shannon Sharpe
So that's why.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
And I'm the first grandchild, so there was nobody ahead of me. Sh. This is the blueprint. It was just folks around me to show me what not to do. And I say this about a lot of folks who are PCs, pastor kids. Right. Or they got parents who've been married 30, 40 years, and the marriage is rocking and rolling. Oftentimes, those kids are robbed of seeing all of the fake perfection.
Shannon Sharpe
Yes.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
And not seeing what not to do. So they usually come out that household, and they're extremely rebellious, and they end up doing the total opposite of what their parents did. And I say this, you know, because I love Cam. Me and Cam, we are great friends. Cam has thanked me for a lot of the impact, positive impact I've had on you.
Bowen Yang
Cam Newton.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Cam Newton. Cam Newton. Cam Newton. Okay, okay.
Shannon Sharpe
Cause you say Cam Newton.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Cam Newton. Cleared it up. Cam Newton. But I say, and I want to say Cam is a perfect example of what I just described. He is a pastor's child.
Shannon Sharpe
Yes.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
His parents are still married.
Shannon Sharpe
Yes.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
He comes from good stock.
Shannon Sharpe
Yes.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
And we're not saying that Cam ain't good stock, but his decisions are not good stock. So just want to show people the example of what I'm referring to. Then you get a little girl like me from the inner city. And parents, our teenage parents, we got a lot of trauma and different. Drug dealing and drug addiction and things going on and trauma in the house. And I was. Had the luxury of seeing what not to do. And I just knew if I did the opposite, it had to be better than that. And it Ended up being way better than that.
Shannon Sharpe
Now it makes sense to me why your dad was so. You're the oldest. You're the oldest. You're the girl. You're the oldest. You was daddy's girl.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Daddy's girl. Yeah.
Shannon Sharpe
It makes perfect sense now because you adore. I'm just listening at you talk in the first 10 minutes. Your dad is your world. You adore him.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
I adore him.
Shannon Sharpe
And we're gonna get into this because, I mean, all these advanced degrees that you have. Were you a good. Were you. You were good in school.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
I was good in school, but I was. I was very, very. You got me up.
Shannon Sharpe
Oh, there you go. You weren't there.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
I was very good in school, but I was very good. You was fighting powerhouse. You're not gonna talk to me anyway. You're not gonna disrespect me. And one thing my parents did, and I say, my parents are my mother and father, Kim and Darin, and my Mariah and Bailey, because all four of them was a village that raised us. Okay? One thing, not one. One of the many things they did amazing was they raised a little girl with a lot of self love and a hell of a backbone. I'm very vertical, and so I stand very strong on respect and on boundaries. That wasn't something I was lacking. But when those boundaries were crossed, when it came to, you know, K through tel, academia was amazing, but I was one that. I got kicked out of LA Unified School District, and I had to go, what'd you do? District permit to Long Beach Unified School District. I mean, I was just not gonna tolerate no bs. And so if that meant that I had to strong arm or use muscle, whether it be verbally or physical, then I was gonna make sure that they understood that. This is a tree. You don't bark up looking like this.
Shannon Sharpe
Cause normally when we came up, women like that had this complexion like this.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
What do we do?
Shannon Sharpe
They were like, I'm not gonna even entertain this.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Oh. Oh. So listen, I think I brought the entertainment, the production, the cameras, and I edited it just the way I wanted it to be edited. Yes, you about that life, Doc. But also, you have to remember that I was a little girl who had the privilege of being able to make one phone call.
Shannon Sharpe
Oh, they were scared. See, you had them scared of your dad, so.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
But I had that muscle that wasn't on you. I had that muscle, too. And I gotta give my father and my family props because we were the family that would, you know, they would pull up and they would be very, very protective over me. Um, my father has done many things that has protected me. He's ran into clubs. He's done a lot of things on behalf of me. Um, alongside my grandmother, my mother, they. We are there. A very protective family.
Shannon Sharpe
You're gonna never get me mad.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Well, listen, my father passed away two years ago.
Shannon Sharpe
Okay, I'm sorry. I'm sorry to hear that.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
That's okay. So being that I might get one.
Shannon Sharpe
You might get one now.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Because to your point, he used to be like, ain't nobody coming around. And he used to say, and he gave me a ring when I was a teenager. Funny you said that. And it was like his pinky ring, which is a big ring with a lot of diamonds, and said, put this on your finger until a man gives you a ring. Don't take it off. Well, I've had two rings. But he also wasn't too fond of me being married because he would say, baby, you know, successful women don't have to get married. I'm like, daddy, no. I want to be a mother and a wife.
Shannon Sharpe
Right?
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
So it's gonna happen on my watch. Your watch, everybody.
Shannon Sharpe
Watch. This episode is brought to you by Prize picks. It's the holiday season, the best time of year for sports, bowl games, basketball matchup, playoff pushes. It's all happening at once. And while you and I are out here making decisions every day, what gifts to buy, what to eat, which games to watch, there's one place where it feels good to be. Right. Prize picks, baby. We're in the thick of football season, and some of y' all might be feeling downright sick. But don't worry. That's why we have prize picks to keep you going for the rest of the season. Week 13 of football, Thanksgiving football did not disappoint. Dak CD more more more. Cowboys are heating up at the right time. And the Bills and the Steelers man Josh Allen looked good that running game. Right on time. New feature alert. Prize picks now has early payouts. If your lineup gets off to a hot start, you may have the option to cash out those winnings before the game even finishes. Prize pick is simple to play. Just pick more or less on at least two player stats. If you get your picks right, you could cash in. Download the prize pick app today. Use Code Shannon to get $50 in lineups after you play your first five dollar lineup. That's code Shannon to get $50 in lineup after you play your first $5 lineup. Prize fix. It's good to be right. You mentioned that you Teenage parents. And your father sold drugs, and I think your mom became addicted to drugs.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
My mom was addicted to the drug that my father sold at the same time.
Shannon Sharpe
How did that work?
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
How did it work? You mean for them or for me? The little girl tried to process.
Odoo Advertiser
The girl.
Shannon Sharpe
I'm talking, like, if I'm selling and the person that I care about that I conceived the child with, I'm gonna do everything I can not to let her get ahold of it. And I definitely don't wanna see my little. My baby see this, see her mommy in this condition and knowing I'm the supplier, I'm part of the reason why.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Wow, I love that you said that. You're so on point. He went and put out a flute on the street and said, if anyone sells to her, then gotta deal with me, Gotta deal with me. And after he seen that he couldn't control or take everybody out, right. At some point, from what he told me, he had to put his hands up and he had to just let, you know, life take its form. And the beautiful thing is that at some point before he passed away, thank God my mother ended up being. She got some health conditions that handicapped her where she couldn't pick her arms up and she couldn't even move or walk. And it was in her addiction. And I remember her calling me, saying, baby, I can't lift my hands. And I'm like, huh? And so we spent years of having her go to different specialists and seeing what they can do. And finally, my good friend, Dr. Aroma Ersner Oromo, he said, she needs surgery or this is. She has a degenerated disc disease. It's never going to get better. So anyway, she had surgery. When I tell you that God, God keeps his promises and he does hear your prayers. And the funny thing is, Shannon, all my life I prayed for her to be off drugs, to be off drugs, be off drugs. When I finally told God, you know what? I no longer can pray that because it's starting to consume me, I'm gonna let you have her now. I'm gonna pay bills and I'm gonna feed her. So I'm gonna always take care of my mother. But as far as her trajectory of her life, I got a. Hands off.
Shannon Sharpe
Those are your hands.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Hands off. That's when her health condition came upon her. And he broke her down to where she couldn't even move. And after her surgery, she came home and it was just her and I. And she had a bag that she had to use the bathroom in. She couldn't get up. I mean, nothing. It was an eight hour surgery and they removed all of her discs and it was just, hence she ain't touched a drug ever since then. She is now the vice president of my company. She has her own healthcare company where she helps people who are disabled like herself. That is her company, her business that she started. She cooks and cleans and runs my entire household. I bought the house, she makes it a home. And so when I tell you again that God would give you back the time that the locusts and the cake and worms took, I am not playing. But the key to him doing that is your obedience to Him. And you know, the Bible says it's better to be obedient than sacrifice. And I was obedient to His Word. And I never wavered in well doing even with the adversity that was going on with my mom being on that. When I turned him, her over to him, God showed me the power of surrender. And from that day, my mom has been sober. She has been the best mother that me and my brother can ever ask for. She does everything she's never done as a child. And to this day it is. I still look at her sometimes across the room like she is really like sober and a mom and it's natural. And she's doing this and we're here. And you know, that's something that when someone's in addiction for 20, 25 years.
Shannon Sharpe
It'S a long hard habit to break.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
You don't break it. They usually die at the hands of that substance. So just always wanting to give God that glory. But again, I want people to know that God's promises are always sitting right there available for you. And I'm telling you what breaks that promise open is our obedience and our trust and our faith in Him. That's all we need. He don't ask for much. And faith isn't something that we know. Faith is an action word. Belief is an action word. It is keeping your commitment to God, doing what you said you would do even when you don't feel like it. Also saying God, and this is my affirmation to this day, I said, God, I don't know what's going on, but I know that I trust you. As long as I can trust you, I can nest in you. Then I know that I'm good. And so I show up to whatever GPS God gives me. And I say, but I showed up. And when I tell you he always does everything in the perfect position and in the perfect, in the perfect alignment. When you just show up, See, people think they got to know everything. If I know everything or if I don't know everything I should say, then I can't show if I don't know how to do it. But what does God say? That I am.
Shannon Sharpe
But if you know everything, that's not faith. Faith is believing in the unknown. You're going to take this leap and know that everything's going to be okay.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
And faith is a spirit thing. It's not an ego thing. Faith is. I know like I know like I know it's not, I think. And it's also you saying that I understand that if God is closer than my breath, then he can't be outside of me. So that's why he says, I never leave you or forsake you, because he can't. And I want to wrap on this. He also says, if you make your bed in hell, there I am. That means that God allows you to have your free will because he loves you. But if your free will happens to be in hell, he's not going to stop you, but he'll be in there with you, which means all you got to do is tap him because he's there. Ask, and he'll shift you. But how many of us are not willing to shift because we get so stuck in the dysfunction that we know the dysfunctional relationships, the dysfunctional part of ourself that we know that the shift becomes so scary, that the better is something that is uncertain. So we don't go to the better. We stay with what we know. And God says, well, I'll stay with you. But the Bible says, what reports will you believe? Will you believe the reports of your dysfunction, your trauma? You're not good enough. You're not qualified, that you are the things you've been through, you are the things that you see in your environment? Or will you believe the reports that I told you that I'm the big dog, I'm the alpha, the omega, I'm omnipresent, that I know the plans I had for you when I formed you in the belly. And then plans were to prosper you, give you a good life, not to harm you. So whenever you are in harm, you're not in what my plans? So how do you know when you're not in God's alignment is when it's doing harm, when it's not prosperous? Because he also says, think only on these thoughts that are prosperous, positive and praiseworthy. The reason why he tells you that is because as a man thinketh, so be it. Come on, Baby. So he's telling you what to think. So when you think on those thoughts. Hold on. So are you. So the man that says he is and the man that says he is not are what? Both, right? So God said, what reports would you believe, And I love you so much, I'll let you believe them. And even if you believe yourself in hell, I'mma ride with you in there. There ain't. Listen, there ain't a human that could ride like that. And this is why I tell people I'm not here to be liked. I got a purpose. And my obedience is to God, not to y'. All. Because as long as I'm obedient to God, we riding in his will. But the moment that I fall prey to dogma or being obedient to your thoughts or what you think or what you need, now I'm in your will. And the only thing that had Peter, who was walking on water, to Jesus depart and fall was because he took his eyes off. Off the wheel and really quick. I got to say this because Peter called Jesus out. How many of us called God out? I'm asking for this. If it's really you, God, show up. Peter said, jesus, if it's you and you real call on me to walk on this water. Jesus said, I'm that dude. What's up? Peter got off his boat, walked on water. And Jesus said, all you got to do is keep your eyes on me, because I'm the one you called. I'm the one that's blessing you.
Shannon Sharpe
He looked down and he looked down.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
But you know why he looked down? Because a storm came. A storm. How many of us have been in storms that have us lose our faith, lose our walk, lose our goal, lose our focus?
Shannon Sharpe
Most of the time. You know why? Because most of the time, that's the only time we really call on God, is when we're in trouble. Like when we're prosperous. We're ascending to the top. We don't need him. We need him. When. Oh, dang. Lost my job, I lost this. I didn't get this promotion. Things happen in my life. I call on him now. But when things was going good, you thought it was all you. You didn't know he was right there with you the whole while he'd been riding. He. Well, you was riding shotgun. He was driving. But you didn't realize that.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
And when you called on him, like Peter called on Jesus when the storm came again, why did you take your eyes off of who already saved you from the last storm and the last storm and the last storm. This is why I say the only person I have to focus on is my God. The only person I'm obedient to is my God. It don't matter who don't like me. No one has to like me. I'm vertical in the God that's in me. Nothing else has to make sense for me. Because I'm not here for it to make sense. I'm here to do what. Trust him in all my ways and acknowledge him.
Shannon Sharpe
First, congratulations on your mom being sober. But let me ask you this.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Thank you.
Shannon Sharpe
Now, y' all know your favorite unc, but I'm also a last minute shopper. I'm talking about a guy that's sprinting through the mall on Christmas Eve like it's the fourth quarter. We're down by six and we gotta have it shelves empty, ideas gone, stress through the roof. But this year I've learned my lesson. I found a last minute lifesaver Aura frames. Every year, that one person that I struggle to shop for, for me, it's my brother. He's got everything, and if he doesn't already own it, he'll just go buy it before I can get it wrapped and shipped to it. But this year, he's getting ORA frame because it feels personal, it feels thoughtful, and it ain't something he can beat. Me too. Here's why OR is clutch. First off, all I got to do is download the OR app, connect the frame to Wi fi, and boom. I can upload unlimited photos and videos. And the best part, I can preload everything before it even ships. So when my brother opens that box, he's already got a whole highlight reel of family memories waiting on him. And let me tell you, OR doesn't skimp. It comes in a premium gift box, no price tag, and it looks like it's planned out weeks ago. You can't wrap togetherness, but you can frame it for a limited time. Save on the perfect gift by visiting orframes.com to get 35 off or best selling carbon matte frames. Name number one by Wirecutter by using promo code Shayshay at checkout. That's orframes.com promo code shayshake. This deal is exclusive to listeners, and frames sell out fast, so order yours now to get it in time for the holidays. Support the show by mentioning protect your.
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Matt Rogers
This is Matt Rogers from Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.
Bowen Yang
This is Bowen Yang from Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.
Matt Rogers
Hey Bowen, it's gift season.
Bowen Yang
Ugh, stressing me out. Why are all the people I love so hard to shop for like me? Exactly, honey.
Matt Rogers
I'm easy. But you're right, holiday gifting is stressful.
Bowen Yang
And all the gift guides out there are boring and uninspired.
Matt Rogers
Wait, what about the guide we made.
Bowen Yang
In partnership with Marshalls where premium gifts mean incredible value?
Matt Rogers
It's Giving Gifts, a series of guides filled with premium gifts at great value for everyone on your list.
Bowen Yang
Yeah, cause if I see one more for the dad who likes golf list, I'm out.
Odoo Advertiser
Right?
Matt Rogers
How about something for the people who.
Bowen Yang
Act actually surprise you with categories like Best gifts for the mom whose idea of a sensible walking shoe is a stiletto. Psst, she wants a pair of stilettos.
Matt Rogers
Or best gifts for me that were so thoughtful I really shouldn't have dying.
Bowen Yang
To see what those are.
Matt Rogers
And you won't believe their prices.
Bowen Yang
Just wait till you see what else is in there. It's basically a one stop shop for everyone.
Matt Rogers
You know, I started bookmarking half the list for myself.
Bowen Yang
Honestly, this is the guide for the 2025 holiday gifting season.
Matt Rogers
Check out the guide on marshalls.com it's.
Bowen Yang
Giving gifts gift the good stuff at Marshalls.
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Ed Helms / Kal Penn
Hey, everyone. Ed Helms here.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
And hi, I'm Kal Penn, and we're the hosts of Irsay, the Audible, and I Heart Audiobook Club.
Ed Helms / Kal Penn
This week on the podcast, I am sitting down with Jenny Garth, host of the iHeart podcast. I choose me to discuss the new Audible adaptation of the timeless Jane Austen classic Pride. And this is not a trick question. There's no wrong answer. What role would I play?
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
You know what?
Bowen Yang
I can see you as Mr. Darcy.
Commercial Announcer
You got a little Colin Firth.
Ed Helms / Kal Penn
Okay, that's really sweet. I appreciate that, but are you sure I'm not the dad? I'm not Mr. Bennett. Here, listen to Earsay the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeartradio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Shannon Sharpe
I'm Shay. Shay. At Checkout Terms and Conditions, you say you're the oldest of seven, correct?
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Mm.
Shannon Sharpe
Your dad has six kids with five different women.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Oh, you done did your homework, baby.
Shannon Sharpe
With that being said, and we know how you view your dad. When you found out that you had other siblings, how did that make you feel?
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
I love that. So when my father went to have my first little sister, okay, Ginger, I said, and I was only 10. And I said, dad, why would you have another child? And I said, it better not be a girl.
Shannon Sharpe
Uh, oh, yeah.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
And he said, well, baby, it's a girl.
Shannon Sharpe
It's a girl.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
And things happen, right? Cause I'm 10. And I said, well, I don't like her. I'm not happy.
Shannon Sharpe
You ain't even met her yet.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
And I won't be her sister, right? At 10 years old, my little sister Ginger came out to love and worship the ground I walk on. And it took me. And this is something that I just have to be Transparent. It took me until I was early 20s to have a sit down with my sister Ginger, who is my baby now, and say, I'm sorry, I didn't. I didn't accept you. It had nothing to do with you, but I love you. You're my sister. I rock with you. You minds. And so from my father, it was an issue. But what saved him and me was he kept having kids. So what I realized was, you know, anyone can replace the baby. You just gotta have another baby.
Shannon Sharpe
Mm.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
But guess what? Person can never be replaced. You can never have another firstborn.
Shannon Sharpe
Nope.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Ever. So when God told me, listen, I put you in the firstborn order, so you ain't got to worry about being replaced. Whoever's next got to worry about being replaced. I said, you know what? I'm good with that. And my father and I, not that he doesn't love all of his kids, they know he does, but they also know I grew up with him. I grew up in his gangster era. I grew up in his dope dealing era. I watched him transition from, you know, being bullhead in the streets to being Darren the family working man. And he always tells me no one else got that opportunity. You know, I witnessed him, you know, being shot. I witnessed him just so much. And it's like I had the opportunity of seeing the transition that they didn't get. And not that, you know, they were robbed because it was tough times. They actually probably had a luxury of not seeing it. But it gave me a different umph in me that we all have. But that makes me the most like my father. And yeah, we have a special bond. We really adore each other. And he dotes on me. He would tell me, you the Kobe Bryant, you're the Michael Jordan of the women. And, you know, to all the fathers out there, that is so important for, yes, if you have daughters, you know, a woman is where her daddy makes her straight up, especially when it comes to men. And she can easily be manipulated if you're a man who doesn't input the things in her that allow her to see red flags. My father would have real one on one conversations with me. He talked to me like his baby. But he also would say, you know, do X, Y and Z and A would be A. And I like that because he talked to me straight up.
Shannon Sharpe
Right.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
And he would explain to me that, you know, men use money to run power like this, or men may say these things that mean this. And so I had this open relationship where I was.
Shannon Sharpe
So you had the playbook.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
I Had the playbook. And I can come to him and say, dad, you know, this is what's happening in my relationship. What does this mean? Um, even if it was sexual now, if it was sexual, he loved Jack and coke. He said, baby, let me get my Jack and my coke before we have that conversation. Um, but he was very open to those conversations. But I want men to know that. That a woman is what her daddy makes her. And so it is your responsibility to build that woman up so that when she's out there, she has a realistic expectation of a man, Not a fairy tale ideology. Because I ended up to what you said earlier about, you know, you're never gonna have a man. I ended up with a fairy tale ideology that I had to work through and process and unpack because I expected men to be this fairy tale that my father was. He was this night shining armor. You call him. He's there. He bought me my first car. We're in Vegas. And, you know, he was a drug guy. So we're in Vegas, and I'm 16. He's giving me thousands and thousands to gamble, to spend. And that was reality for that type of guy. But my dad also told me, if a man looks like me, smells like me, or acts like me, run, run. Do not bring him home and do not date him. So he never glamorized being a womanizer. He never glamorized having sex by five women. He told me, this is what daddy did, but I don't want this for you. And there's too many men who do those things. And because they are too egocentric. Right? Versus caring about their daughters, that they would glamorize their behavior so their daughters won't look at them in a certain way. But you are tearing her up, because now she thinks that the right chosen person looks and acts like you. So when she brings you home, that's your problem. But my father told me from the beginning, it's a hard no. And when I did attempt to date, because I really never dated street guys, probably because he raised me like that, right? I dated more like athletes when I was, like, a college athlete or some of that sort, or just a really good boy next door.
Shannon Sharpe
God.
Bowen Yang
We.
Shannon Sharpe
Go ahead. Go ahead. I'm just. I'm just.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
See, I told y', all, he not messy, but he crafty. I told y' all that. See? See? But when I first tried to date my first little street guy, my dad didn't even. He said, let me see a picture. He said, what do you do? I said, he does real estate. He said, just like he said that. Don't do real estate. I said, he don't. He don't. He don't. And my dad called me every day. I'm not lying for seven days to tell me to get rid of that man. Because one of them gonna end up dead or in jail. So guess what?
Shannon Sharpe
You got rid of him.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Got rid of him. The right thing to do.
Shannon Sharpe
Yeah. You said, your dad said that if he ever got married, the wife would become before the kids.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
He said the opposite.
Shannon Sharpe
The kids come first.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
And I disagreed with him.
Shannon Sharpe
Oh, yeah, Absolutely.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
I disagreed.
Shannon Sharpe
Absolutely.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
We had literally almost a two hour debate. Me and my father would debate a lot. We have almost identical personalities, okay? And he would never tuck his tail to anybody. I'm like the only person he'd tuck and say, baby, listen, if we gotta agree to disagree, then that's fine. Or Daddy's not trying to say nothing that's gonna upset you, baby. We saying the. We said. Because he's just trying to be Daddy and not hurt me. But anybody else, it would have been, you know, just.
Shannon Sharpe
It is what it is. So move on. Move on. Would've been war.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
But we had a long conversation. He told me. Cause I had a fiance at the time who actually had two beautiful girls, and he was putting me before his adult daughters. And that's the right hierarchy.
Shannon Sharpe
Yes.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
And my father said, he can do that in your household, but the woman in my house would never come ever before. And I said, daddy, I don't agree. And I'm your daughter. I don't agree in that hierarchy. He said, you don't have to agree with what I do in my household. But when y' all come here, a woman will never come before my girls. Ever. And so, you know, but again, that's also a man who has six kids by five different women.
Shannon Sharpe
Right.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
And I love my father, as y' all can see. But I'm also a realist. A man who can procreate with multiple women and not make a family with none of them or only one of them. That says a lot about his lack of respect for a woman in general.
Shannon Sharpe
Okay?
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
So I would have never expected my father to say that he respects a woman who he's romantic with so much that she would come before his kids. Because obviously the respect level for a woman was limited from the jump in order for you to be able to do things in that nature. And that's for any man, including my father.
Shannon Sharpe
You think that's a respect thing? A man that he Lacked. If he lays down and have kids with multiple women, he doesn't respect them, is that what.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Yes. And in addition to that he doesn't respect himself. And I also think that he lacks self love. Any man who will lay with a woman unprotected, right. Let's not just talk about obviously procreating. That can happen. We're talking about health wise diseases that can happen.
Shannon Sharpe
He lacks what if he protected himself?
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
It'd be better if he protect. If he. Now this is my thing. I do agree. I think that it's not about what we do, it's how we do it. Okay, so if a man wants to be a man who was very honest and transparent about. Look, I'm just trying to be intimate. I'm in my intimacies, I'm just trying to have sex and have a good time. But we're going to do it safe, we're going to get tested and use protection and no one's getting pregnant. And I'm telling you out in the front, there is nothing wrong with a transparent man who women are signing up to or a transparent woman that men are going to sign up to be in alignment with nothing at all.
Shannon Sharpe
Okay?
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
I'm talking about a man who was sleeping with the woman and the woman who's sleeping with the man. Both are unprotected. It ain't just the man's accountability. The woman is accountable as well. And now you have multiple families and multiple homes that are broken. We have an issue here that is a bad decision making crisis in our community. And it's also people who are living in this very present world of they're so used to dysfunction and it's become a pathology within our community that that is the norm in their baseline of what they do. And so doing anything outside of that is not just only unknown, but it's not even a norm that how to create. That's the part that makes it sad to me.
Shannon Sharpe
You hold held your father in such high regards. How was it? How were you able to shift and say, you know what? I love my dad, but I don't love him enough to have a partner like my dad.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Love that. My dad is a hell of a father. He is not a good man to his women. My dad is a womanizer, but he is a hell of a father. I truly believe that the womanizer in him and him being able to take his ego out of it when it comes to his relationship with his kids and not glamorize his bad behavior is what made him such an amazing Father because he's able to say, I know what I do to women, so let me teach you what it looks like so you don't run into the same type of joker. And my father never put himself on a pedestal about the decisions that he was making. When I got with my ex fiance, who had two beautiful girls, right, by two different women, my father said, who took great care of me, I was a kept woman. The man was a great guy. My father said, let me explain something to you, baby. When we got engaged, he said, you told me, since you can even speak, that you never want a man who has multiple kids with multiple women. That you never want a man who is a man like daddy is. He said, what makes that man different because it's two and not five. And I said, you know what? You're onto something. You're onto something. You're right. It doesn't make a difference. He still is a man who has multiple kids by multiple women. But even in that, my father didn't say, well, it's okay because I got multiple kids. You know, some guys like that could be good men. He said, you told me as my daughter, you didn't want that. So even as a father who was doing the same thing, if I have to put myself in a bad light for you to have what's right, then so be it. That is what parenting is about, Shannon. Parenting is about I remove myself from this for the betterment of you. That is what love is not. If I tell you, Shannon, don't get a woman who's of age like me, who's a doctor, who don't want a man with kids, don't you know, don't get a woman like me. I don't want to tell you that. Because if I tell you that, then what? It makes me look bad? No, if I love you, that means I use anything I have to help you get in a better position and do what's best for you. That's what parenting is about.
Shannon Sharpe
It's funny that you say that. Why can women have choices but men can't? Women can say, I don't want a man to have kids. I want this, I want that. I want a man to make six, seven figures. I want him to be educated. I want him to be God fearing. I want him to be able to be world travel. But a man can't say, well, I want a woman that's five foot seven. I want a woman that has long natural hair. I want him to be of this complexion. I want her to be shaped like this. Why can't men say what we want, but women can say what they want?
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
One more thing. Because I feel like we're deflecting from one more thing.
Shannon Sharpe
Okay?
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
We want her to be this race. We want her to be this type. Let's keep it real. We're not gonna deflect from nothing.
Shannon Sharpe
What thing?
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
There's men who. There's black men who only date non black women.
Shannon Sharpe
Okay?
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
We don't have to say white woman, Just say non black. Because there's black men who only date Latina women, but not white women. There are white men who only have a thing for black women. There's nothing wrong with a preference. I don't think a man saying, I am only attracted to or I have only been attracted to this type of woman means that he doesn't love or respect these other kind of women. Now, on the flip side, a man who says, I am turned off and do not like black women, so I date non black women, Right? He has mommy issues. He has an identity crisis because you came from the woman you're saying you dislike. So now we have a deeper rooted issue. I'm not saying that a brother who only dates outside a black woman cannot also have mommy issues. But if that's just his preference, then that's different than saying, I don't date because my experience was bad. I don't date because I don't like the way black women show up. I don't date because I don't like the way black women are strong or they talk too much. And I'm not saying those things ain't true for a lot of us. Okay? Yes. But what I'm saying is everyone has the right to have their preference. But I do believe that people need to look deep down and say, why is that your preference? Take inventory on that. I know. My preference of a man with no kids is because growing up as a little girl, I had to share my father with six other siblings.
Shannon Sharpe
You want undivided attention?
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
And I'm not sharing another man in my life.
Shannon Sharpe
Damn.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
And I'm also not gonna put my children in a position to have to share their father with anybody else at all. And I'm going to go even deeper. When my father passed away, which I'm happy my dad did it so perfect. Right? His life insurance was split up amongst his babies.
Shannon Sharpe
Yeah.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Now, I love that because I love my babies. I'm the oldest of seven. Those are all my babies. Okay. And if he would have gave it all to me, I would have split it with Everybody anyway, right? But I'm happy he did it on his own. But my point in saying that is when a man or a woman gets with somebody who has other offspring and kids, you have to not only think about the relationship presently, but also in the exit strategy. So my kids do have to split things. My kids are being born into a deficit because guess what? You won't be able to be present every day with my child if you are going to be a father to those children. And when Christmas comes or holidays come, or school comes, or God forbid, something happens to your other children, like an emergency. What if our kids have an emergency at the same time? Who do you choose? What happens? Do I show up as a single mother in that moment because dad has to be here? How do I explain that to our babies? And why do I have to? And I won't have to if I choose a man who I know can be present? Because being present is being in my house, in our house, in our children's home, taking them to school, waking up in the morning, them seeing you with the good morning, our son. Being able to watch how you process your emotions as a man. Watch how you interact with, with me as a man. Watch how you sit with your legs like that. Watch how when the game is on, you sit and watch you in a certain stature. Watch how you yell at the TV the way you do what you do. I yell at the TV when I watch football. And I am a football head because my grandfather and my father were football men. So we would sit and watch football non stop. I'm calling pick six all day. I mean, I am calling flag on the plate, PI. Come on, ref. That's me, right? Other women don't watch it like that.
Shannon Sharpe
Correct.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Because how do I look by watching the men in my house, by being the only girl for so long.
Shannon Sharpe
Kids are very observant.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
So my thing is, and I'll wrap on this, is it's not that people with kids, multiple folks are doomed. It's a different way that they have to parent. And whether you parent perfectly, not perfectly, but you parent at your best or not, those kids are still going to be in a deficit. And I want to say this part too, because a present parent can also present trauma. So I don't want to make it seem like because if you're in the household, you're not presenting trauma. Because it's also sometimes a parent or a couple that decides not being together will create a more peaceful, healthy environment for the kids and us is the better decision. So I'M not condoning or advocating for people to stay together in trauma, dysfunctional, abusive relationships. Where they're creating now not just a broken home, but a broken family. Because they're two different things. Right? I'm saying you got to do what's best. But if you make decisions at the very beginning that are good, then you are able to date better, marry better, parent better. And you do get kids, even if they choose to detour off, like the Bible says, who have the tools to be better. And that's all that I'm pushing for our community. I'm not pushing that people who are baby mamas or baby daddies to beat themself up and say they're doomed. That's not what it is. But what I am saying, Damon, is now, today, make a better decision. Do something different. Show your kids that there's a different way to do it. And, you know, let's teach folks to get out there and figure out the sense of self so our divorce rate isn't so high. And let's figure out, Shannon, how we can do more than just make good love and have a drink together. Like, how come we can't have better conversations together? We don't have to be romantic to have good, intellectual, emotionally intelligent conversations. We don't have to have gender wars. Cause we don't agree on a topic.
Shannon Sharpe
You believe men, and you believe men and women can have a friendship. Steve Harvey said he ain't got no.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Women friend, and he shouldn't.
Shannon Sharpe
But you.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
So he's married.
Shannon Sharpe
So a man. So like me. You and I married.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
I'm not getting me on this conversation. Shit.
Shannon Sharpe
I'm just saying. So you believe men and women can have a true platonic. Hey, hey. Let's meet here. Let's go get a drink. Let's go get a bite to eat. And it stays that. Cause a lot of people's like, oh, he's just waiting for his opportunity. He just waiting for you in a moment of weakness. And something went wrong in your other relationship. And he got that big shoulder for you to cry on. And next thing you know, voila.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
I had a best friend of 24 years. He was there through both engagements. He was gonna be in both weddings. And as soon as that second engagement was, he said, have you found someone new?
Shannon Sharpe
I knew it. I knew it.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Hold on, Shannon. I said, no. We were friends since we were 14. I said, no, I haven't. He said, well, why don't we try it? I said, I know you too well. Listen to this. So I could Never be in a relationship with you. He had no kids. He does well attorney. All those things.
Shannon Sharpe
Perfect.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
I had no kids.
Shannon Sharpe
That's you.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Well, that's you.
Shannon Sharpe
That's me. That's you.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
That's me.
Ed Helms / Kal Penn
Got it.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
That was me. That was me.
Shannon Sharpe
My man behind the plain sight. Right here in front of me.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Right here. Right? Okay. So I said, we can probably be homie lover friends and be intimate, because I've known you for so long, so I feel very safe with being intimate with you. And he says, if I can't have you in every way and marry you, I won't touch your body. So I said, okay, well, let's try this dating thing. We tried the dating thing. Exactly what I told him was right. Sex was fire. Absolutely amazing. Absolutely amazing, Shannon. The relationship. Mm. Mm.
Shannon Sharpe
What was wrong?
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Everything that he did in all his. All of his previous relationships, he started to do in ours.
Shannon Sharpe
He brought back.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Because people are who they. This is another thing. People don't change. We shift. We learn how to manage the things in us that we don't like or that we learn don't serve us. So if lying never served nobody, that person is still a liar who has to manage the behavior of not lying. No different than an addict. A person who was addicted to porn is managing, no longer looking at porn. Management could look like this. They won't go in the environment of maybe a strip club. They will not go in an environment where there's a porn on television. Same thing for alcoholics, right? They try their best to not go around it as much as possible. There's a lot. A lot of willpower that. That takes a lot of managing. You don't wake up, up the next day or go through six months or a year of therapy, Shannon. And you are no longer built the way you are biologically. You no longer think the way you think. You no longer have the appetite that you used to have. Do we grow out of some things naturally? Yes. But evolving and growing out of something is very different than saying, now that I'm with you, I want to stop smoking cigarettes. Now that I'm with you, I no longer want to watch porn. You're managing yourself. So there's only a matter of a time before who you don't like about me shows up in this relationship. So I always ask people this. Instead of finding people that you have to change for or that you want to change for, you find somebody who's conducive to the shit you got going on. Meaning if you are in your dysfunctional Era. I'm serious. You find someone who. Your dysfunction does not create dysfunction in them. Your dysfunction may be something that they need and they can feed in a healthy way, because that happens often. For example, people who have anxious attachment, those are people who are just always want to be up under. You want to call, you want to attach. You want to do that, right?
Shannon Sharpe
What you doing? Not talking to you right now.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Watch this. Now, I'm an abandoned little girl who's grown up to be an abandoned woman. I have worked through a lot of my stuff. But that anxious attachment person would drive somebody who is in avoidant or even secure attachment crazy. That is system overload. Way too much for me. I love me a clingy man. So if my man. Hold on. I'm not saying he's sitting at home, not doing nothing, playing video games. I'm saying he's traveling, he's doing work, he's doing his thing. But maybe in between work, in between sessions, in between lunch, he wants to FaceTime me or text me or baby, I miss you. And when he's done with work, he wants to get right back home to mama, I love me a man like that. Or he wants to fly me out. Oh, hell yes.
Shannon Sharpe
So you gotta therapist session. You talk. It's so Mr. Johnson. So how is it that Ms. Johnson feel that you're not meeting, so forth and so on. And then you get out of that session, you got like five text messages, three missed calls.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Okay, so see, now you're going obsessive. I didn't say that the person will crash out. That's different. That's somebody who's having an anxiety attack because you're not available. That's more of codependency.
Shannon Sharpe
Okay?
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
I'm saying somebody who has an attachment style where they love being plugged into their partner, okay? They want to plug. They want to see. You want to see your woman's face before me. And you do this interview, right? So when I walked in, you might have been saying, okay, baby, hey, Dr. Bryan just walked in. I'll call you right back. And then you hang up. And I'm like, hey, Shannon. Yes, that is what's healthy for me, okay? But for many other people, that attachment style may not work for them. They may say I'm too neat or that person's too needy.
Shannon Sharpe
Yeah.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
So what I try to teach people is stop finding someone who is avoidant, right? And I want someone who's gonna be attached. And now I'm telling you all day, Shannon, like, you don't call Me enough, right? Like, are you not into me? You know, you're not slapping my ass every time I walk by, you know, it's like you need your space downstairs in the man cave for an hour when you get home to debrief. But to me, that makes me feel a little detached from you, right? Mm. Versus finding a man who says shit. You are my man cave. I can't. Daddy can't wait.
Shannon Sharpe
Come on down here. Let's watch this game together.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Come on, baby. Now we talking. And while you at it, mama, bring that, bring that good shade, that good shade dark. Bring that good shade, dark. You know what I'm saying? That's what I mean by us finding what's conducive to us not finding the person who needs us to change and be something else. Because that's also a deeper rooted issue. If I'm always attracting and choosing people who want me to change, that is an identity crisis issue. That is a lack of self love. Something in me doesn't like myself. So I'm calibrating you. Who was pointing out for me what I don't like that I need to change. And I'm making you my motivating factor to change. When. If I don't like that about myself, shouldn't that be an inside job?
Shannon Sharpe
Right?
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Shouldn't I sit with me first and say, these are the things I don't like about me? Let me lose the weight. Let me have better self care. Let me tailor down on my smart mouth or whatever it is I feel I need to do. Why do I need to choose you to tell me I need to change and me be motivated by you? That's codependency. That's unhealthy. So people listen, get a sense of self and then find somebody who's conducive to who you are. Because no one's ever gonna be perfect. We all gonna be broken when we meet whoever we meet. And there's no such thing as a fully healed person. So all this wait till you heal to find somebody. You're gonna be waiting forever. And what?
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Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
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Matt Rogers
This is Matt Rogers from Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.
Bowen Yang
This is Bowen Yang from Los Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.
Matt Rogers
Hey Bowen, it's gift season.
Bowen Yang
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Matt Rogers
I'm easy. But you're right, holiday gifting is stressful.
Bowen Yang
And all the gift guides out there are boring and uninspired.
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Bowen Yang
Yeah, cause if I see one more for the dad who likes golf list, I'm out.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Right?
Matt Rogers
How about something for the people who.
Bowen Yang
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Matt Rogers
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Matt Rogers
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Ed Helms / Kal Penn
Gift gifts.
Bowen Yang
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Matt Rogers
Hey.
Ed Helms / Kal Penn
Everyone, Ed Helms here and hi, I'm.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Cal Penn and we're the hosts of Irsay, The Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club.
Ed Helms / Kal Penn
This week on the podcast, I am sitting down with Jenny Garth, host of the iHeart podcast. I choose me to discuss the new Audible adaptation of the timeless Jane Austen classic Pride and Prejudice. This is not a trick question. There's no wrong answer. What role would I play?
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
You know what?
Bowen Yang
I can see you as Mr. Darcy.
Commercial Announcer
You got a little Colin Firth.
Ed Helms / Kal Penn
Okay, that's really sweet, I appreciate that. But are you sure I'm not the dad? I'm not Mr. Bennett here, listen to earsay the Audible and iHeart audiobook on the iHeartradio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
What happens is while you are trying to isolate, to heal, you are also unlearning how to socialize. You are also dead in your chemistry muscle. So when you go back out the house six months, five years, however long y' all trying to isolate, then you're going, I'm socially awkward. How come I can't connect with people? How come there's no chemistry with anybody? Well, you ain't used it, so you have security.
Shannon Sharpe
Hadn't been updated.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
There you go. So it's about having healthy distractions. I'm going to heal for two hours a day and meditate and take self inventory and do my therapy. But then Monday Wednesday, Friday at 7 o'. Clock. I have to get out and socialize. I have to get out and meet people who are celebrating me. I have to get out and create a circle of wealth who are pouring into me. So I have a balance of healing and also a norm that's going to allow me to be and be around people and socialize and meet someone who I can possibly be conducive with, who I don't have to look forward to being my motivator to change and be a better me. Being better comes from the inside. A woman will never make a man a better man. Y' all gonna change when you want to. As you see in my father's words, a gonna be a nigga. A womanizer is gonna be a womanizer. A woman will become a product of your environment. Offsetting. Cardi B is a perfect example. Cardi B came into it, she had no kids. She was in her career. She's going diamond and platinum with her. Right? No kids. Offset had how many by how many?
Shannon Sharpe
I think he had a couple.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
So who became a product of whose environment? Cardi now has two by two. My theory proven right again. She has two by two. So she's a product of his environment. I'm just saying what it is. Because a man who's gonna marry is a man who's gonna what? Marry. He's looking for marriage. But a man who's just looking for ass is. Is what he's looking for. It don't matter if he runs into Dr. Bryant. People in general, especially women, have to be stop being so arrogant to think that anything we got, from face to a whop to a dwarp to anything, can take a man and make him what he's not. We ain't build him. We ain't never made y'. All. We will never change y'. All. Only thing we can do is choose y' all and say, if this man never changes. This right here, I will love everything about this man exactly how he. But we don't do that. I do now, but most women don't. We go, I like 25, 35%. I think that's. That's 65%. Once he meets me, makes love to me. See, I can cook and I can clean and I can do these other things. And my knees is good. And I do cook. Yeah. Take the maid cleans collard green. I'll cook it for you, but I cornbread, but I don't eat red meat. But I'll cook it. I'll cook it for my man, but I don't eat red meat. But.
Shannon Sharpe
But, dang, you do all that. All that Mac and cheese bake.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Guess what?
Shannon Sharpe
What? That.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
That ain't gonna change who you are. That's not gonna change the type of man you are.
Shannon Sharpe
I don't even wanna go out no more. Lose my number, homeboy. Don't ever call me again. I'm happy here.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
There you go.
Shannon Sharpe
Let me ask you this, because it seems like in today's time, dog, when I was coming up and was dating.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
This is so good. I don't even drink. This is so good.
Shannon Sharpe
The thing is. Thank you.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Shoot. I'm about to come up with a Shay. A Dr. B something. This is good.
Shannon Sharpe
When I was coming up, it was like the ladies wanted you to call them and you just couldn't call, like, now. If you talk to the person once a week, they cool. If you.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Who's they? Okay. Them other ones.
Shannon Sharpe
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Don't call me once a week. Call me all. Listen, I said love me at least once a week. Love me like this. This. Do not love me like that. Literally and figuratively. Love me like this. Baby, you got to love me up close.
Shannon Sharpe
Dark on demon time.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Demon time. See this, with this darkness.
Shannon Sharpe
It didn't take long.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Love me up close. But, you know. But I want you to finish your question. Because healthy people. People know how to love.
Shannon Sharpe
Okay?
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Healthy people don't have to love you at a distance.
Shannon Sharpe
Okay?
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Because a distance means that I'm putting barriers in front of us.
Shannon Sharpe
Yes? Yes.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
So if I am not afraid of love, then why am I not loving all the way like this? Why am I not loving like this? Why am I not loving like this? Why is it that I'm putting stipulations or barriers or limitations on how I love you? I was made from. My parents loved the shit out of me. My mom still treats me like I'm four. My dad still opened my door at the age of 38 when he would take me to dinner. So I am a love bug. So I don't need you to love me from a distance because you are starving me of the love that we could both be having if you didn't have issues with love. Because when you think of love, Shannon, you think of love as limitation.
Shannon Sharpe
No. It's limitless.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
So then why is there a number amount on how many calls or texts I can give or get from you a day? Why is it that, you know, too much time is too much time to be spent? If we really love and like each other, right how come I can't just miss you while I'm in your presence? How come I can't just have made love to you, laid up under you and want to lean over and still smell you again? What is wrong with that?
Shannon Sharpe
Nothing.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
How come I can't make love to you, been with you for four days straight, we done made love four, five times already. And then say, daddy, I miss you.
Shannon Sharpe
Really?
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
That's not obsessive, that's healthy love.
Shannon Sharpe
That happened in today's time.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
That's how I love shit. It's healthy love. And that's why I can't just be giving my loving to anybody. Because.
Shannon Sharpe
You have that kind of personality.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
One gallon. There's people who are pints, okay? Gallons have to be careful of pints. And pints have to be careful. No one's better. It's just different bandwidth, right, my love? Is this so if a pint pours everything they have into me, how much is left?
Shannon Sharpe
You still got room.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
If I pour everything into them. System overload. They cannot facilitate me. This is why I said we have to find conduciveness. We have to find people who are what bandwidth capacity driven. We gotta stop looking at this dude got a contract for $100 million. So contract could pay these bills. But then after you get these kids and you see that the trainer that you've been training with, who possibly can't pay all the bills, has the bandwidth. I'm not saying be with the trainer. What I'm saying is you got to find the in between where it's conducive for you. Because people are too driven in things that don't sustain them. And then they end up making decisions that have them doing time because they didn't take their time. That's a problem, is it?
Shannon Sharpe
In the relationship now, do we have two unrealistic expectations? Because I think the thing is that and what I like, I'm a firm. And the lady told me, say, Shannon, you're never gonna find someone that has everything. You're not gonna find someone that can cook, that has a job to do. Your X, Y and Z. Because Shannon, if she has a job, how do you expect her to be at your beck and call? And then you're gonna get tired. If she's at your beck and call all the time, you're gonna get tired of her being at your beck and call. So you're not gonna find someone that has everything. Just find someone that has enough of the qualities that you want that a few of the ones that she if you don't, you can survive.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Perfect. And I say this. What are your non negotiables? Right. My non negotiables is a man with children. That's pretty much it.
Shannon Sharpe
Yeah.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Right. I mean, of course we can be abusive. Those are the common sense.
Shannon Sharpe
Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Common sense.
Shannon Sharpe
Okay.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Right. No kids.
Shannon Sharpe
Right.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
So as long as he has no kids, I go down the list. He's kind, he's loving. You know, he has that attachment style I like. He wants to get his suitcase and live up in me. I love it. You know, that type of thing. And he loves on me. He's faithful. I like transparency. I don't like honesty. So he's transparent. And so what people need to do.
Shannon Sharpe
Is say transparency is telling you is something that you didn't even ask him.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
It's forthcoming. Honesty is.
Shannon Sharpe
Yeah, but I do.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
That's the question. And then you answer me. Forthcoming is. Bae, Let me tell you what happened at the meeting today, baby. I was driving home and got an email from my ex, and I ain't talked to her in 10 years. Really, babe? Yes. And the email said, boom, boom, she's in town, she wants to go to lunch. I said, what'd you say? I told her I'm married, that she didn't see that on social media. I got a wife or I didn't respond at all, baby. Okay. And guess what? We resume our day, okay. Because the fact that you're transparent, you are now depositing into our trust bank.
Shannon Sharpe
Mmm.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
But when I have to ask, you say you didn't respond to the email at all. You did everything right. But I happened to run through and I said, baby, you didn't tell me such and such emailed you. And you go, oh, babe, you know, I wasn't even thinking about it.
Shannon Sharpe
I ain't paying that no mind.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
But let's say you did everything right. You really didn't pay it. No. Now, it's not about you doing anything right. It's about what? Why didn't you tell me? Most people say that now you are starting a little bit of cracks and crevices in our trust foundation when you ain't did nothing wrong. So now, of course, I'm not going to leave you for that. But now we got to work through me trying to say, baby, next time could you tell me. But when you can just be forthcoming, if you know you have nothing going on, transparency is the way to build the best is. Baby, look, this is what it is, and let me go. It's gonna be a very unapologetic opinion. But for my players out there, for the men who trying to play, for the woman who trying to go dig, even as a player who got a little bit of game, transparency would be what you want to do. Because when you tell a woman everything that's really going on, she trusts. Hold on. Trust creates what? Security.
Shannon Sharpe
Right.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
What do women want?
Shannon Sharpe
Security.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Mmm.
Shannon Sharpe
And you give her an opportunity to make a choice. Because if you deny her that.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
So how many women are dealing with a married man who they know is married? And that married man has no problem with the side chick because she knows. And in her rabbit ass mind, she says what? Say it.
Shannon Sharpe
Eventually, he gonna leave her and be with me.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
And guess what? He a good man, Savannah, because he's honest with me. He told me he was married, I could trust him. But see, Savannah's man was married in that movie too.
Shannon Sharpe
Mmm.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
That's the problem. And the wife don't know about you. And even if she does, he's a womanizer. So a womanizer's gonna do what womanizes. Right. So when a person shows you who they are, my dad used to always say, believe them. Don't wrap them with your fairy tale ideology of what you want them to be, and then gaslight them when you see that's not who they are. So transparency is the foundation. Whether you are trying to move in a good character, which I condone. Good character, or even if you're not. It's about the transparency piece. We all want to know that whether I like you or not, Shannon and I can transition. I'll hire you if I could trust you.
Shannon Sharpe
Yes.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
But I'm not gonna hire this snake who does a better job than you. But I can't trust him. It's transparency.
Shannon Sharpe
Do we have two unrealistic expectations of what a relationship should be?
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
You mean on the man and woman's perspective? I think so. I think the perfection thing is one, definitely. And I think that's both men and women. I think men want this perfect woman who does all those things you named in today's society, what woman is not working? I mean, you do have some women that were kept. I was a kept woman. But to your point, I cooked, I cleaned. He had in house. I never denied him. All I did was work, out and run. I'm the president of NAACP here in Los Angeles, and I ran that and ran my foundation. But I didn't work. He didn't want me to work. But I also was a woman who was okay with not working and just fully submitting to him. I was okay in that position.
Shannon Sharpe
Would you be okay now in that position?
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Mmm. So I believe that I would be okay in that position if my husband said, baby, you know, once you have our kids, I want you home with them, and I don't really want you actively traveling the way you do for your career. And he was open to me still creating and producing all the shows that I produce where I don't have to be. So hands on. Right. Having my Dr. Bryant Institute, which I have therapists that work for me that see clients. If he understands, understood that what I built, which is bigger than me, it's about healing our community, is something I can still have and allow it to operate and heal folks. Yes. But if he said, you got to shut up, shut down, close down the shop, when I would say, well, that doesn't make sense, because this contributes to our economic household and it contributes to our legacy. And these are things that I can leave behind to our children. And also that you, as my husband, will fully benefit, because this is not mine. I built this and it's ours. And so let's take it and build it together. And I don't mind hiring, you know, office manager, a second assistant, another CEO. I could hire four, five more people.
Shannon Sharpe
Right.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
But I want to make sure what I built can sustain it. But what I will say is I am 100% open to dialing down and being more available and convenient and accessible to him. Absolutely. Because I've done it before and I love that position. Yes.
Shannon Sharpe
You mentioned the show that you produce. You co produced mtv, Teen Mom, Family Reunion. You was on Basketball Wives. What is it about? I remember I had a conversation with a guy, this had to be Dr. Bryant, probably in 2000. And this was the time, kind of like MTV, the Real World was just starting to come on Survivor. And he said that. He said, that is television moving forward? I said, what do you mean? He said, reality television is gonna be the wave. I said, why? He said, cause it's cheap. He said, instead of paying somebody 1000-002003-00000 an episode and you shoot 20, 25 episodes, you can pay somebody 5,000. Cause everybody wants that 15 minutes. And everybody feels they'll be able to take that 15 minutes and transition into something big. And lo and behold, but I think reality television is done a disservice to somewhat because they got people. They got people thinking, like, come on, bro, it's not like that. It's not like that.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Yeah. And people can't trans. Many. Most people cannot transition out of reality TV to anything else because they've exposed the parts of them that most people don't want to hire or don't want to represent them. Company, their company. So. So for me, with Teen Mom Family Reunion going on that show, I developed it and I co produced it. I was an on camera life coach. Right. So my reality was my real life position.
Shannon Sharpe
Yes.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
So I love that. That was my purpose. I love those teen moms and dads and families that were on there. We built great relationships and I was able to really, really transition their lives. It was beautiful. And for people to see it on tv, Basketball Wives, I also went on there as the psychology expert.
Shannon Sharpe
Okay.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
And it just took a different toll because those group of women were not in a position of wanting healing, which I believe the network knew that. And it's all. It's business. I get, it's entertainment. They were more in the position of saying, well, this is our norm. What we've been doing with reality tv, we turn it up. Right? So at some point I understood that that wasn't the show for me because I wouldn't be able to use my expertise on that show. I would have to, you know, check a bitch on that show. It's just the truth. And so I said, let me just remove myself before I ruin myself and somebody on the show. But reality tv, I think it was good for its era. I think that it still plays a role in entertainment, but a lot of people are stuck in that. And so what they're doing is they gotta create certain timelines to stay on it. Right. And I feel like their life at the beginning is the real. And then after they're on there for so many years. The question is how much of it is real now? Because now you have to create sustainability for you to have a story.
Shannon Sharpe
Right.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
But a lot of my friends are on reality tv and, you know, so for the sake of them, I hope it stays and they keep getting their bag and they keep doing their thing. But for me, if I'm producing it, you know, I wouldn't mind doing it if it's a show where I can provide healing like Iyanna Van Zant. Fix my life. That's reality that I love.
Shannon Sharpe
Right.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
You know, so shout out to her. That's my first coach and still someone who I go to for wise counsel. But shows like that I think are good. But I also think some people, Shannon, want to be entertained. I don't think we have a right to tell somebody what they need to watch. People like it, entertain people like it People love it. They do, they do. You know, and for some folks like myself who don't have drama in my real life, thank God I don't watch.
Shannon Sharpe
Why do we like drama though? Why do we like the car crash? Why do we like, like, why do we. Why what? What is our obsession with seeing someone else crash out or seeing someone misbehave? What? When did we. Have we always been this voyeuristic?
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Well, it's relatable to some people. It also validates that they are not alone in their crash out. Perfect example. Before tubi became Tubi.
Shannon Sharpe
Yeah.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Now when tubi was hood movies.
Shannon Sharpe
Yeah.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
I. When I don't watch movies, but when I did watch a movie, it was Mrs. Asylum, Boyz na Hood or a good to be hood movie. Why do you think I like that? It was home for me.
Shannon Sharpe
Right.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
It was childhood for me. I related to that. I grew up in that. I didn't want to recreate that. But every time I watch it, I'd be like a little kid in bed in my pajamas, right. Eating, having my drink, my wine. And I'm just loving watching this gangster type of love story that I was a product of at one point. And so people watch what they relate to. Remember that. And we live in a world, especially within our community, where you do have the broken homes, you do have the dysfunction. But I do want to give us our props real quick because there are so many people in general, but especially black folks who are understanding that faith without works is dead, who have the faith and the principles. You know, most of us grew up in a church home and we black, we know God, we know principles, we know the Bible. But they're coming to therapy, they're making therapy a lifestyle. They understand that mental health is real, that mental health will make or. It has been breaking us. And so I want to give our community the props of saying that, you know, listen, super proud of us for showing up and making mental health a conversation and making therapy a conversation on many podcasts, on many talk shows. 80% of my clients are celebrities, are athletes, NFL players, baseball players, and. And a good 90ish are black and black men. At the highest rate of any of my clients, especially my A listers and my athletes have experienced suicide attempt or suicide ideation and never told anyone. And they're just blessed and happy that they didn't act on it or follow through.
Shannon Sharpe
That wasn't always the case.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
It was not always the case.
Shannon Sharpe
We grew up, I'm old enough and grew up in an environment where you Weren't allowed to cry if you were a man because that was a sign of women. When did you think this shift happened where black men were comfortable coming to sit down and talk to Dr. Bryant or they were willing to go seek counseling? This is what I'm thinking. This is what I'm feeling. I'm not okay. And I'm big enough. I'm man enough. I love that I'm not prideful enough to say, doc, I need to talk to somebody. Cause I got these thoughts going on inside, and I don't know how much longer I can put.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
So as much as most people hate social media, I believe that that is one of the positive impacts social media has had is folks being able to see other folks that look like them. Black men being able to see other black men. Black boys seeing black men on social media that look like them, expressing themselves, having mental health breakdowns on social media, showing the results of therapy, the results of not getting therapy. We. We've had black folks on social media commit suicide. We've had clips of that. I think social media, the power. The positive power that it does have is the witnessing of other people having the same crash out or mental health crisis as we as a viewer are having and normalizing it for us so we don't feel alone and then seeing what they did to cure it or to help it and saying, you know what? I want that help too.
Shannon Sharpe
Right.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
I think when you don't have the vision of what is possible for you, like the Bible said, we perish. We perish, right? The Bible says it. It says people without a vision do what perish. And it says hope deferred does what makes the heart sick. So when you lose hope, we have a sick heart, which make what sick people, Whether it's physically or mentally. But one thing you said that I love is you said them coming to session and being like, okay, doc, you know, I'm broken. Or I have these thoughts and I feel this. This way. Y' all don't come to session like that, by the way.
Shannon Sharpe
It takes a while to get a session.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Y' all work my ass, okay? It don't be like that. Especially black men. You come in session and. And I love this about y. Listen, I. I have a soft spark for my black. I love y', all, boy. Y' all come to session.
Shannon Sharpe
I don't even really want to be here. I don't even know why I'm here, but I'm here.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
My wife made the. The appointment or they. Y' all sit in session and I love this. You're waiting for me to create a safe space. Why do I love that? Because I am not. I am not entitled to hear your issues just because I have a title. You should make me work to create a safe space for you so that you know you can trust me. However, you should do that as well in your relationships. Before you putting your penis in, you should make sure that that body and that space is safe so that your trauma and your issues wouldn't become buried in your codependency on and sex. And you would be able to gain a sense of self and not a sense of your codependency where all it does is trigger and inflame your traumas and your existing self hate and issues. And then we would have have better men, not for women, but for theyself. And the suicide rate is the highest in black men.
Shannon Sharpe
Really?
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Do you know what the root of suicide is? It's self hate. It's identity crisis. You have to hate yourself so much and the identity that you tell yourself you have to want to kill the biggest part of you, that is an identity crisis.
Shannon Sharpe
But then you don't realize, okay, I'm hurting so bad and if I do this, I'm no longer hurting. But you miss the most important part. The people that you leave behind that gotta hurt forever. Because now they question, where did we go wrong? What did we do wrong? What did we. What signs did we miss?
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
And you know what's funny? The people that you want them to think about, that's gonna hurt the most when they gone are the people that got them in the pain that hurts them the most.
Shannon Sharpe
Wow.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
So you think they give a care about leaving you? Let me tell you something. I've had a boy sit on my phone and tell me that he was going to kill himself in the kitchen, time it so perfectly so that his father could walk in and see him. Because he wanted his father to feel the pain that he projected onto him that he was not aware of. You think that little boy cared about his father being in pain for the rest of his life when the whole intention was. Was killing myself is the measurement of the pain that you have projected onto me that you.
Shannon Sharpe
So I want you to feel this pain.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
You ain't said nothing about it. You going about your daily life. Mmm. Dating, working, doing whatever you're doing. And I am bleeding to death in front of you. In front of you. I had to sit on the phone with that boy for hours and hours. He's now doing well. Suicidal ideations are gone. Him and his father have the most amazing relationship.
Shannon Sharpe
Wow.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
And his father always says, I am forever, ever indebted to you. I'm like, no, you're not. Right. But I said that to say that's not how a person who is in excruciating pain to the point where they want to kill themselves is at.
Shannon Sharpe
They don't think.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
They're not thinking like that. But also, it's an accountability piece to the people who are around them. It's not good enough, Shannon, for me to ask you. Baby, you okay? Let me tell you something. I have two brothers.
Bowen Yang
Mm.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Both younger. If I ask our baby brother, his name is Shane, He's a baby of all of us. If I call his phone. If I call his phone and he don't answer too many times, you can ask my best friend and assistant. Who's in here, Shannon? I'll pull up and lay on that. Lay on that horn, knock on that door, come in the house. Because, bro, what is up? What is going on? And there has been times where that was needed. And he didn't want to say what was going on. He was raised to be that man that you said that if a bill is short, he not going to ask if he's feeling some type of. He's not gonna speak. But when he walks in the house, I can tell when his mood's off because I pay enough attention to that boy. Cause I love him. And as folks who love our folks, we have to pay more attention than just Shannon said he was good.
Shannon Sharpe
We caught up in our own self. We ain't got time to be thinking about all that.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
But if I noticed you weren't good, that's the only reason why I asked you, right? And you said you was. Why did I take that as okay? Why didn't I say, no, you're not?
Shannon Sharpe
No. Cause you asked that question for a reason.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Or you got some people who ask it for the okay, which is an egocentric approach, just to say, well, I.
Shannon Sharpe
Asked him, and he said it was okay. I done my part.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
So ask me when you really care. Don't ask me how I'm doing if you really don't care. Because if I'm not doing well, and I told you I wasn't, and all you was asking to say, you did your part, right? How was you gonna provide resources? How would you gonna be someone who can help me with this impairment? So what I want to say, honestly, to everyone within our community, this is just real. The whole, what's up, dog? You good? Needs to be Real. But are you good? Well, I asked you that because I know you're not.
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Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
So what's up? And I need to be pressing you. Like I press you when I want to go have a drink. Like I press you when I want to go hang out. Like I press you when I want to turn up. Like I press you when I want to be outside. Like I press you when I want to watch the game. I should be pressing you when I know something's not right with you, because that's what real friendship is. That is what real love is. And I don't care if you get mad. I'm in your business, and I want to know why. Especially with black men. Yes, especially with black men. We need to. Because y' all will get fussy and get emotionally uncomfortable. And why you bugging me? Why you want to talk about. Because I'm. Because I'm bugging you. And until we talk, you tell me something. I'm not going away because I love you. I've had to tell clients who've been mad at me in session, listen, I'm doing my job. You can't get rid of me so you can get as mad as you want. I'm not going nowhere. Do you know how that shifted the whole trajectory in that man's whole attitude when I said, well, I'm not going nowhere so you can get mad. We still got 30 minutes. I'm not going nowhere.
Shannon Sharpe
Wow.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
And I'll be here next week, too. I'm not going nowhere. I've had men break down in just cross by me saying, I'm not going nowhere. So we can unpack this, and we can do this tug of war, right? But I'm in your pain with you.
Shannon Sharpe
What about this situation, and I think. And I've heard this, and this happens a lot. Is that sometimes when we reveal our deepest, innermost thoughts to our partner, they turn around and flip it when they get mad and throw it up in our face.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Yeah, that happens often.
Shannon Sharpe
So now I don't feel this is a safe space. So I've got to go to someone that doesn't have a dog in a fight. I know they're not gonna throw this up in my face because they're like, well, you know, you can talk to me about anything, but I can't. Because the moment you get mad at me, you're gonna throw this up in my face and say, see, your grandma didn't do this or your mama didn't do that. You got blah, blah, blah. And I mean, really try to hear that.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
But why are you the only one going to someone to talk? Why are they not going to someone so that they can learn the proper tools to facilitate a healthy relationship. Y' all both need to be in someone's office.
Shannon Sharpe
Well, they're perfect, so. But anyway.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
But. But that's a bit of narcissism is what you're describing. Cause if I'm perfect, but you don't have a safe space with me and I throw everything you say back in your face because that's just ego. If I'm throwing something back in your face, I'm intentionally trying to hurt you. And that's also a competitive nature because anytime I'm trying to chip away at you is so I could feel more. What, Superior to you. That's a narcissistic behavior. So what are we doing here now? Again, I said narcissistic behavior. So you can have traits and not be diagnosed. You can have the behavior and not be diagnosed. Okay, y'. All. So. Yes, but we have to be aware of that. And I think as women in general, especially black women, we do gotta do a better job of holding space for y'.
Shannon Sharpe
All.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
We do gotta do a better job of having a safe space for y'.
Shannon Sharpe
All.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
And when we do get upset knowing how to have. Knowing how to have a fair fight, I can easily say you ain't shit for not telling me about that email. But do I have to say that's why your mama left you?
Shannon Sharpe
Exactly.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Because you probably was a lying ass when you was a teenager too.
Shannon Sharpe
Mm.
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Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
That's why she abandoned you because she didn't want to be around you either. Like, so those are things that we have to be aware of because that's.
Shannon Sharpe
Yes.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
And if I'm spitting venom at you, that means venom is where in me.
Shannon Sharpe
Yeah.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
So now my trauma has just entered into the relationship, not the woman you probably chose, which was the healthy me.
Shannon Sharpe
Right.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
That showed up my representative, which is still me, was a healthy me. I didn't tell you you was a nothing ass dude when we first started dating. But now that you have entered into my vulnerability, which encompasses all of who I am, you are getting who all of who I am. So you're not just getting the baby talk to me, are you? Okay, well, are you hungry? Well, what happened? Oh, that's okay. Just next time the email comes through, just tell me. Can you commit to that? Yeah. Okay, baby, we good now you getting the trigger little girl in me who's abandoned, so now she's the one that's having an argument with you and she is going to de emasculate you. She is going to dismantle. Why? Because she was dismantled as a little girl and misery and healthy both love company. So when I'm in my healthy, I'm gonna pull you in. But when I'm in my dysfunction, I'm gonna pull you in. So this is why I say you have to have people who are hybrids, high functioning and low functioning. We have to both be both. Because when I'm in my low functioning, what do I need you to be in your high function?
Shannon Sharpe
All right.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
I need you to say, baby, that's that little girl in you who's broken. And I know you don't mean what you're saying and I love you and I'mma have grace for you right now. But I'mma ask you not to talk to me like that because you're crossing my boundary. And I'm working very hard to make sure the little boy and me don't get in the ring with her.
Shannon Sharpe
Right.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Because then we gonna trauma bond and I don't know if we can come back from them blows. Yes, you have to stay in that position. And then when you go low, I have to be able to be aware of my man and say, whew, he's in that space.
Shannon Sharpe
Cause normally, doc, when they go low, I go to hell, I bypass the basement.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Hold on, both of us, baby.
Shannon Sharpe
Because let me tell you, bypass the basement though.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
And then I remind, look how bad I get. I say, yeah, shy. Cause God said if you make your bed in hell, he there. I said, well then God, we going, yeah, we going, yeah, yeah, we gotta work on that.
Shannon Sharpe
Yeah, we gotta work on that. I'm getting better, doc.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
I'm getting much better.
Shannon Sharpe
I ain't got to fight even like I used to have. I'm getting older now, I'm getting wiser.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
The problem is I still got the fight and the grit and the strategy. So I'm managing all that.
Shannon Sharpe
Is there a difference between a therapist and a life coach?
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
There is. So I started off as a marriage, family and child therapist, right. Where I was working for a non profit under a license and diagnosed and doing progress notes and billing insurance and dealing with court ordered families from dcfs, the Department of Child and Family Services. And so that was where a therapist diagnosed. We do progress notes, we bill insurance. A life coach is somebody who still provides resources and tools, right, Similar to a therapist, but we don't diagnose, we do not bill insurance, and we obviously don't need progress notes. Two totally different things. Also, a life coach isn't treating clients. A life coach is seeing clients. As a therapist, I was treating clients, right? Not just seeing them. My modality is a hybrid modality because I started off as a therapist and my approach was cognitive behavioral therapy and psychodynamic. And because that's my foundation, I use a lot of those tools still in my life coaching. And to blend it all together, they're both needed. And that's why my hybrid approach is the most effective. Because therapy is like, tell me more. Let's talk about your childhood wounds. And these are why you do what you do. This is why you think the way you think, right? Your three part house is how you think, how you feel and how you behave. This is why your three part house is disaligned. Then we get you aligned coaching says, all right, Shannon, now that we got you somewhat together, where do you want to go with this? Who do you want to be?
Shannon Sharpe
You.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
You see, coaching, if the person doesn't have a therapeutic background like me, doesn't know how to penetrate the trauma, right? And therapists are not coaches. They're just trying to help you process through your stuff. But they're not going to get you to where you want to be when you take both of them, which is me, the hybrid. I'm going, we going to talk about the stuff and then we're going to get you to where you want to be so your stuff does not come in and sabotage you once you get there. Because one without the other really is a deficit to the client. It just really is. Yeah.
Shannon Sharpe
Did you get this kind of vitriol before you came, before you became viral and you became an Internet sensation? Did people dislike you then as much as they do seem to dislike you now? Cause every time I turn around, somebody got something to say about you.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Well, you know what I say about that?
Shannon Sharpe
What you say about that, though?
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Cause you know, the Internet lit your ass up too many times.
Shannon Sharpe
Oh, man, they got me. You see, I ain't even on the Internet no more.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
You ducking. Shannon said, look, y' all don't want Shannon to go to hell, so leave him alone. Duh, you just leave him alone. I always say this when everybody likes you. You're on your way when they start to hate you. You made it. That's how I put it. But to answer your question, people have always loved me, but not always loved the truth that I speak.
Shannon Sharpe
Okay?
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
I've always been a truth speaker before I was even in my field. And I just learned now that I don't give the truth outside of sessions, stage interviews, or my speaking events. If my friends don't ask, I don't give. It works better for the friendship, and it saves me the headache.
Shannon Sharpe
Right.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
But I've always been a person who rocks the boat. I'm here to interrupt, you know, generational pathologies. I'm here to interrupt dysfunctional pathologies. And as a disruptor, people are going to have an issue. And usually the history hit dog is what barks. And so I'm used to that, and I'm okay with it. And my intent is to hit the dogs that need a bark. And so long as they bark. And I'm doing my job. And I always say, you know, my sheep will know my voice, even the wolf who's in sheep clothing, because that wolf is where? In my herd. And so either way, my thing, as long as you get something and you do something with it, then I've done my job because I'm obedient. To who? God? Not for people.
Shannon Sharpe
China passed a law that said influencers need to hold a degree in the topics in which they discuss to reduce misinformation. Do you think, as American, American should adopt that policy? I don't. Personally, I don't, because I think sometimes experience is the best teacher.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
I agree. I don't think anyone should need a degree or accolade or credential to give any type of expertise.
Shannon Sharpe
No, right.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Because I agree with you. I always want the first thing I say when I talk is when I went and spoke to the Stillers, you know, shout out to my Stiller family, I said, listen, my accolades, these six degrees, they don't qualify me to speak to you. It's my experience, it's my pain, it's my abandonment, it's my trauma that's gonna make me relatable to you.
Shannon Sharpe
Yes.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Nothing I read in the book, none of these plaques and degrees that are in my office on the wall is gonna be what makes me relatable to you. And so I agree with you. And I also think that it's not just a person who has had experience, it's a person who has gained wisdom from that experience. Because I always say, you know, when folks say, how can you give advice or wisdom to folks? You've never been married to your mother. Well, because, one, I don't teach people how to be married. I teach them how to get out of their own way. So I'm teaching you how to process through your stuff so you can be a better healthier, happier man and her do the same. Happy people make for happy relationships. Trauma out dysfunctional people make for trauma and out dysfunction relationships. However, I don't want to hear from a married couple that been married 15 years in miserable 13 how y' all did it because you're giving me your blueprint to your failed marriage. So it's not just about experience, it's about the wisdom. Because if you look at really quick the Moses journey, he freed the Egyptians from Israelite, right from Israelite and what happened the Israelites from Egypt right across the Red Sea. He gets there, you know he's disobedient. The people are so God makes him do what? Spend 40 years in the wilderness. He gets out the wilderness.
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Matt Rogers
This is Matt Rogers from Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.
Bowen Yang
This is Bowen Yang from Los Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen. Yeah.
Matt Rogers
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Bowen Yang
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Matt Rogers
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Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Psst.
Bowen Yang
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Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Hey audiobook lovers. This week on the podcast I'm sitting down with musician, producer and walking encyclopedia Questlope, we're talking about Mark Ronson's memoir Night how to be a DJ in 90s New York City. All right, like we talked about before, Mark Ronson found sanctuary in the DJ booth. What's a tool or piece of equipment in the studio or on stage that gives you the most control?
Shannon Sharpe
So I have two microphones on stage. We have the microphone that you hear as the audience. Then we have a second microphone in which we communicate with each other. I feel like that second microphone kind of saved all of our friendships. No, no band likes each other after 20 years or 25 years. Like the Beatles broke up in seven and a half years and we're going on 35.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Listen to ear say the audible and Iheart Audiobook Club on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast. Now, Moses was the leader. He was supposed to be the expert. Yes, he done freed everybody, right? He done freed these Egyptians. So now he gets to the promised Land. So God tells him, I'm going to bring you to the Promised Land. Remember, God's promises never return void. So he brings them to the promised land. That means the promised Land right there. Right here. And he tells Moses, talk to the promise rock, water will come out. Well, Moses being so experienced, but not wise, he hits the rock, water still comes out. Why? Because God does what? Keeps his promises. But guess who made it to the promised land but not in the promised Land?
Shannon Sharpe
Moses.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Because he was what? Disobedient. But let me go further. Everybody that Moses led, everybody that was under Moses wise counsel, that wasn't wise. It was just experience. Also didn't make it into the Promised Land. Only Joshua and Caleb made into the Promised Land. So what am I saying, y'? All, you gotta be careful who has your ear. You gotta be careful about. This person has experience because they've been married for 20 years. That makes you think they have experience. But do they have wisdom? Because the Bible says to seek wise counsel, not to seek experience. So you gotta make sure you're doing your due diligence. Because like most, you don't want to end up being his follower who does all of this work. He could have left you in slavery for that. You could have stayed in captive. You still didn't get to the Promised Land because it takes one decision to change the entire trajectory of your life. And that one decision to follow. Moses got them where 40 years of wilderness and then we're back in bondage because they never made to the Promised Land. And so again, it's not to ding Moses. We know Moses was doing God's job. He just was disobedient, though. I just want folks to really be careful to your point of who they're listening to and do your due diligence. Don't look at someone and say, well, because this man has three kids by three different women, there's nothing I can learn from him. Let's see if what he's doing now is breeding the results that you. You want. Let's not look at a woman who doesn't have kids or a man who doesn't have a certain career. Phil Jackson, you. How many years of basketball did he play?
Shannon Sharpe
He played a couple. He was on the the Knicks team. But Bill Belichick is a better. He didn't play football.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
But Phil also didn't do nothing. Kobe and the people he coached did.
Shannon Sharpe
No, no, he didn't play at that. He didn't play at that level. But.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
But was he. Is he one of the best coaches?
Shannon Sharpe
Yes, arguably.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Okay. And you can go with Bill Belichick. Same thing.
Shannon Sharpe
Yes.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Oh, gee. The hall of Fame coach, in my opinion, didn't.
Shannon Sharpe
Didn't coach Saban.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Okay. So my point is those people are folks who are wise counsel because they're taking you to the promised land.
Shannon Sharpe
Right.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
And allowing you to enter. So we gotta be careful with that. And so again, I'm teaching people results that I have. If I don't have the results, I don't teach on it.
Shannon Sharpe
Right.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Because I don't know about it. And if I have had the experience, but it didn't get me wisdom or a good result, I'm not gonna talk to you about it. I have a wise counsel for that.
Shannon Sharpe
Wow.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Cause I'm not a know it all, but I do wanna give you what I do know. Works perfectly fair.
Shannon Sharpe
You do a lot for the black community. Women. Black women are some of, if not the most educated, but seem to be losing in the job market at an alarming rate. Why do you think that?
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Why do I think black women are losing in the job market? But they're the highest. We are the highest educated folks out here. You said that part.
Shannon Sharpe
Yeah, I did.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Okay. I want to make sure. I want to make sure. I think that. So I think that what's happening is more black women and studies have shown this are turning to entrepreneurship. So it's not that we're losing in the workforce. It's that we are not really applying in the workforce. A lot of us are going into. And studies have shown that a lot of women have gone to law school, which means they're having their own law firm. So they're not being hired by anybody. They are going back to get their doctorate, meaning they're going in private practice. So who are they hired by? Unless they're working for a hospital. And a lot of women are starting their own entrepreneurship and doing their own thing. A lot of black women, let me say, are starting their own businesses. And what I love about that most is these businesses are businesses that are actually they're able to capitalize off of them and they're successful businesses. And I believe the reason for that is there is or has been for a while a sisterhood that black women have been able to build. There's no longer this barrier or angry black woman between Black women, like, we have a village over here. We supporting each other. We are rocking with each other. And the issue is us trying to blend with y'. All. And it's not y' all fault. It's just so that we don't have this barrier of this gender war. And it's not an us against y'. All. It's more of how do we blend and support each other? Even if we're procreating or marrying or creating a family, how do we support each other? Just as community folks, just as a black woman to a black man? And what does that look like? And again, this has nothing to do with whether the black man dates a non black woman. I'm saying, as a black man, I don't care who you date. You can still support black women because you believe in that. Because if you're a black man, there is a 100% chance that if you have a daughter, she's black, I don't care what a mother. Which means you do have a responsibility to support us because in return, you're supporting her.
Shannon Sharpe
Right.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
And that's important.
Shannon Sharpe
Doc, what is the. How do I want to phrase this? A relationship? Because you get into a relationship today is Tuesday, we get in a relationship on Tuesday and Wednesday, that person's a different person. Thursday, that person's a different person. Because the greatest key to survival is adaptability. How do you evolve every day as that person evolve without losing yourself?
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
I love that it's impossible. Why do you think the Bible says cleave one person, one person. This is cleaving. Do you think that as we don't lose ourself, we are going to not cleave? So when we bump up against each other, there has to be some movement which is a bit of a loss of a step. Doesn't mean you become open person before we can intertwine and cleave. That means you have to be willing to lose some pieces of you. And this is the thing. When you're single, don't you want to evolve?
Shannon Sharpe
Yes.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Don't you want to prune? Or do you want to be a fig tree? You know, the fig tree in the Bible got cursed because it didn't produce anything. God said you'll never be blessed because you weren't fruitful or multiply.
Shannon Sharpe
That's why people don't like figs.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
But on the flip side, you know, the fig tree is actually the most fruitful tree ever. It grows year round. But let me say this. When you are by yourself, you want to evolve.
Shannon Sharpe
Yes.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Which means parts of you die. So why get in a relationship? And I love this question for black men and black women, especially black men, evolution is about parts of you dying. So why is it that child okay with doing it when you're by yourself? Why is it that when you get with a woman and that is a necessity, it's she's either trying to mother you, trying to change you, or you're not willing to do it, that makes no sense at all because you have to evolve. And evolution is parts of you dying. That means you're losing parts of you.
Shannon Sharpe
Yes.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
But when you get into a relationship, you're resistant at losing parts of you that are necessary for you to cleave with the person you want to spend the rest of your life with. If that is what's necessary for the bigger people, for the mansion within y', all, the sanctuary within y', all, why is that an issue? I want to ask you that as a black man. Why is that a problem for y' all to cleave, which means evolve, which means lose parts of you when you are in a relationship? Why is there so much resistance of I am who I am, I'm not changing. You met me like this.
Shannon Sharpe
Yeah, yeah. That. That's a lot. Cause I feel like, because like you said, we are losing parts, if we lose parts of ourselves, am I still the same Shannon?
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
But why do you want to be the same Shannon, even if you're by yourself? So do you want to be the same 30 year old Shannon?
Shannon Sharpe
No. No, no.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
So then why do you want to be that you're number two with me or you're number five with me? Why is it that me being the woman you chose.
Shannon Sharpe
Yes.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
I got to be of some good character.
Shannon Sharpe
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
So my good character hasn't influenced you in any way to want to.
Shannon Sharpe
It made me want to do right.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
To do better. Yeah, to do right. But can I say me, I haven't watered any seeds in you?
Shannon Sharpe
Yeah, you have.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
And so when those seeds are watered right and you start to grow, what about the pruning season within our relationship? So you just don't want to prune? Because if you don't want to prune, that means you don't want to grow. Because it takes pruning for growth.
Shannon Sharpe
Yes.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
So explain to me. And even when we sow up the soil to plant new seeds, there's seeds down there that get sowed up, that end up dead. So at what point do we grow together? This is one of the biggest deficits and issues within Our black community of black and men being in relationship, at what point do we grow? If you're not willing to grow fig tree, at what point? And then when God curses this marriage head cause you covering me because you refuse to be fruitful and multiply fig tree, then what? I didn't do my job? Or was I too controlling? Or was I trying to be your mama? Or was it that you chose to sit up there with branches unfruitful, not multiplying because you didn't want to be pruned for us to grow? I'm just here. I'm waiting to know the answer.
Shannon Sharpe
I wish I knew the answer.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
And you look like you might be the only black man in this room besides the brother over there. And he not in this interview with me.
Shannon Sharpe
No.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
So why. Mnh, mnh. You got to answer. You got to come to somebody.
Shannon Sharpe
Well, doc, if I knew that, I probably wouldn't be almost 60 and not married.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
And I've heard you talk about how you are in relationships.
Shannon Sharpe
I am. I mean, like you say you got some non negotiable. I got some non negotiable.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Right. But you're very inoculation. And I don't say this to poke you. I'm saying, you know, wrapped in love, you're very stuck in who you are in relationships.
Shannon Sharpe
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
You're very. This is who I am. And when I want my space, I want my space. And I don't need to shift or change. You can do what's conducive to me type thing.
Shannon Sharpe
Yeah.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
And so that is the resistance. But you just said as a single man, you would not want to be the same 30 year old you are now?
Shannon Sharpe
I don't, but I just.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
So why do you want a woman to be with you? Are you the same person you were when I met you?
Shannon Sharpe
I'm working. I'm a work in progress. It's taking me longer than anticipated. You know, I had to repeat a couple of grades.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Okay.
Shannon Sharpe
I think, to be honest, Doc, I don't know. Like. I don't know, maybe like you say you had this vision of being married. I don't know if I really, really deep down inside thought about I was gonna ever be married. Cause I was just. My whole focus was to get my family out of the environment that we was in. And I didn't necessarily think. I thought I needed a wife in order to do that. So it was just work, work, work, focus, focus, focus. And I don't do a great. I don't do a great job of multitasking. So I can't do my job and love this person like I love this job. That's the hardest part, because I've always put work first. Work has always come first. When I played, it was the most important thing. It was the only. You play second. Or if you can't play second, just ain't no sense in you getting in the car. And so it's so hard for me to turn that off because I've done it for so long. And now that I have so many people counting on me, you know, brother, sister, mom, kids. It's just hard for me. And, you know, the thing that I got. That's all you do is work. The only thing that you care about is work. And sometimes I think that is. Cause I've never. I've gone on one vacation in 57 years.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
But what are you overcompensating for? Because workaholics are overcompensating for something they're lacking. And oftentimes work is transactional.
Shannon Sharpe
Yes.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
It's not relational. It's transactional.
Shannon Sharpe
Yes.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Oftentimes folks will overcompensate in transactional worlds for what they're lacking in relational worlds. And it's usually because of what you said, they don't know how to operate in the relational world. No, but they do. Well, over here, I do. And we all go where we do what?
Shannon Sharpe
Well, yes. That's why I don't have. I don't do a whole lot of things, but what I do do, I'm very good at.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Yeah.
Shannon Sharpe
I don't take on new hobbies because I hate. Well, how do you know if you're good at it? I know. And so what I'm good at, I become great at.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
But I wanna know, when are you gonna give yourself a chance to love and be loved? Because you don't have to enter into it being great already. You just have to enter into it with the willingness to shift and be malleable, not to the woman, but to the opportunity of you being loved and loving somebody back.
Shannon Sharpe
Yeah.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Which is really, you know, the ultimate fulfillment. The reason why we have to keep working and keep working and keep working and turn into workaholics is because there is a monetary or a limited fulfillment over here.
Shannon Sharpe
Yeah.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
So we have to keep. To get it.
Shannon Sharpe
Yeah.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Like a drug to get it.
Shannon Sharpe
Yes.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
But see, love is not like that.
Shannon Sharpe
It's not. I think, Doc, for me, growing up, how I grew up and not having it just drove me. And that was the thing that I really obsessed about was to like to see my grandmother, not have to worry about bills and not have to worry about things. And so I just poured everything. God gave me the ability to be disciplined, be dedicated, and be determined. And so for me.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Wait. But not to a woman.
Shannon Sharpe
No. Cause if there was a choice, Doc, if I had a choice between work or woman, as a woman, I'm choosing work.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
But that's cause work is safe for you.
Shannon Sharpe
It is.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
What is so unsafe with you, emotionally, with a woman?
Shannon Sharpe
I think for me, I haven't had the best luck with women.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Why?
Shannon Sharpe
But I haven't been the best for them.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
That's. Okay. Talk about the luck. What is the narrative around you haven't had the best luck with women?
Shannon Sharpe
Because I've never given them all of me, like, I have a job. I only gave them what they couldn't hurt.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
There you go. This is good. What is it that they could hurt? What's that?
Shannon Sharpe
Me.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
What part of you. My heart that was hurt? When. When was the first heartbreak you can even think of?
Shannon Sharpe
I don't even.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Who was it by?
Shannon Sharpe
I'm not even sure, Doc.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Was it by dad? Where's dad?
Shannon Sharpe
My dad died when I was. My dad died when I was. When I was 13.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Was he with Mom?
Shannon Sharpe
No.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
What kind of guy was he?
Shannon Sharpe
I only saw my dad once to really know who I was looking at.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
There you go. There you go. So that abandonment, that abandonment wound. What is your narrative about your father? What kind of guy was he to only have seen him once?
Shannon Sharpe
Well, when he and my mom divorced my grandfather, you know, growing up, how we grow up, get divorced. The kids are going with the maternal grandparents. And that's what we did. We came down to South Georgia.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
But let me word a different thing. What kind of father would you have to be to only see your child once in 13 years?
Shannon Sharpe
I think he was embarrassed about what not being what he wanted, what he thought he should have been, not being there. My dad had some drinking issues and he didn't think he was the father that he should have been. And I remember my grandmother, Grandma Charlie. His mom told us that he wanted to come home, but at that point in time, he had. Had both jawbones removed because of cancer. And he didn't want. He said, grandma Charlie. He called her Charlie. He said, charlie, I don't want the kids to see me like this. And she said, pete, they gonna love you regardless. They just wanna see their dad. And he said, you know what? He said, you know what, Charlie? I'm gonna come home in September. Yeah, well, he died in August. And so, yeah, I would have loved. Cause when I played college ball and I played in the NFL and I saw guys have their dad in the locker room or standing on the sideline, I used to think, man, it'd be so cool to have my dad here and to be a part of this. But it didn't happen. But my grandfather died when I was 8, and that's who raised my grandmother and my grandfather. But Granny poured every ounce into me. But there are some things I think that I did miss because I didn't have. My brother was like my father. He was really the dominant male figure that was in my life. But that's Doc. I mean, poverty. That's what kind of shaped me. And I joke. I said, man, we grew up so poor, I had to win the lottery just to be broke. That's how bad we were, Doc. And that's what drives me now. All I think about is like, okay, if something happens to me, what's going to happen to Libby? What's going to happen to Spanky? What's going to happen to my mom, my kids? Well, they. They going to be okay. They're going to get more money than would they do right by would. Would they? And that's what keeps me up at night. And. And I. And I need to devote. I need to shift that and say, okay, Shannon, if something were to happen to you, your. Your family's going to be okay. Because I do want someone.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
And I'm gonna say something, okay? And I totally wrap it in love, okay? Cause it's gonna probably sound a little pokey, but the same selfishness you just described your father as. You have it. You have it. And the pain that his selfishness and his pride and his ego implemented in you is the same pain that you're implementing in everyone you come in contact with, including your girls and their mothers. What your father taught you was nobody, not even y', all, were good enough for him to come around or stay around. And nothing has been good enough for you to stay around, not even your kids. Because you obviously are not or were not with their mothers, right? And it doesn't make you a bad man. It just makes you a man that needs to be aware of your makeup and how you're built. Because you can't change that when we talked about it earlier. You can manage that once you realize, damn, I'm him, too. So until you realize that ego, that pride that he has, that he has taught you, and it's obviously in your DNA as Well, and that selfishness is what will always be a barrier between you and your heart. Not you and a woman, it's you and your heart. Then you will always overcompensate and work and you gonna do damn good over here. But it's gonna come a time, if it hasn't already, that what you're overcompensating for, which is the heart space, starts to consume you. And you're gonna need that to even balance you over here. Because we can only do something out of moderation for so long before the moderation says, yo, what's up? Especially the matters of. And with you. It's what I said earlier, right? Hope deferred makes the heart sick. And when a little boy becomes deferred from hope at a young age with his father and they take on the father role like you did and go and get it and put the family on the mat and take everybody out of poverty, he usually never returns to find himself. And the only thing or one of the biggest things that kind of breaks my heart with you is you've accomplished so much in everything you've touched. Transactionally, it has turned to gold, all the way down to the gold jacket. But like the fig tree, you still haven't found yourself all the way at the age of 60. And finding yourself takes the heart.
Shannon Sharpe
The mind replays what the heart can.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Hello. And so you have been operating from such a mind space so that you don't have to even have a connection with the heart, that it has put you in such a deficit of self. And that's what goes back to when I said a man who can procreate with multiple women without wanting to make sure that there is a foundational family there. He has a loss of self. And that man has an identity crisis. And there was a huge self love deficit. Because a man who loves himself makes decisions that represent self love. And everything that you have externalized is a direct reflection of you. The brokenness in the families you created, that's just the brokenness in you. How you can be successful transactionally, but your heart is over here talking about, well, at what point am I gonna get seen? And then what the little boy and you tells the heart is, didn't nobody wanna see you when you was young, wasn't nobody tripping off you then? So why do we think anybody is deserving, right? Or why do I think as a little boy that you're deserving of someone who would take your heart and really protect it and create a safe space? So it's Easier for you to have transactional sex or have things that are convenient for. Because that gives you control. And control is just insecurity. Insecurity is just fear. And that's that little boy in you who was so afraid that if I can't touch and go and touch and go with everything, I might end up touching, staying, and might get stuck in a place that I don't know how to navigate. Let me say this again. Not in a place that isn't safe, not in a place that isn't loving, but in a place that the little boy in you does not know how to navigate. Navigate. It's time for the grown man in you to grow the up and give yourself a chance to love whatever that looks like and to gain a sense of self, of who you really are at your heart space. Because transactional life isn't really legacy. It just isn't. It's nice on paper, yeah, but it's not legacy. The real wealth and the real legacy is what Dion has. And that's family. That's family. I'm not saying you don't have it with your girl, and I'm not saying it's too late to create it.
Shannon Sharpe
Right.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
But what I'm saying is I would like to offer that at some point you do start to say, let me just dive into my heart by myself. Even if you're still doing your transactional stuff with women or whatever. I'm not saying stop you grown, but start to just get a sense of self, of, like, who you are at the heart space. Because that's. Our heart is who we are. Our mind is something that we have to have dominion over to control. But our heart is something we can't control because it's the authenticity of who we really.
Shannon Sharpe
Well, since you put it like. Since that. What is it about good girls and bad guys?
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
What is it about good girls who like bad guys?
Shannon Sharpe
Yes.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
You mean like the woman who been liking you?
Shannon Sharpe
I guess you could say that, Doc. Touche.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
You gotta get crafty. I. I think that those women, again, are women who are overcompensating for the. That kind of fatherly bad guy who can come in and create a leadership that they believe leadership is usually those women are fatherless little girls who don't have a clue on what leadership, healthy leadership, looks like. So they look at the bad guy who can puff his chest out and who can call shots or who can have some control over her. As this is leadership. Because he's given me some type of guidance, some type of direction.
Shannon Sharpe
Yes.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
A woman who has had a father knows how to decipher from a controlling man who's the bad guy and a man who knows how to lead her. And what happens is, it's not that the woman with the father doesn't want a man who can run shit, because I like a man who will run shit, who will tell me exactly where to go, how to go. And I'm even okay with saying how to when they say jump when the leadership is right, right? I'm quick to submit. Okay, Daddy, no problem. But a man who is a bad guy with ill intent, because if you don't have good intent, you have ill intent. There is no lukewarm. Okay, that's it. So you're either deceiving me or you're allowing me a safe space where I can trust you. There's no in between. So the bad guy is in deception. And only a woman, woman who wants to be led by a deceiver is a woman who is lost in herself, but a woman who is not lost in herself and has a sense of self and a sense of what a male, healthy leader looks like. Like, my father led me not to a ditch, but led me even when he had to crucify himself to lead me.
Shannon Sharpe
Right?
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
That is what a husband looks to me. A bad guy says, I'm not crucifying nothing of over here, you'll be on the cross before me. And here you can carry minds, too, because that's what's conducive for me. That's a woman who is lost in the sauce, and she has daddy issues. And oftentimes she may even have parental issues. And that's also a woman who has to take a step back and take inventory on where did I learn that this leadership is accurate leadership? If I keep being led into the ditch, that means that all she's ever known is what the ditch. And when I say we go to places where we're good at or where we're familiar with. So if you want to know where you at, just understand that you are where you're familiar at. So my expectations are of men are very high because my father created a very high familiar, standard expectation. This is why I said a woman is what her daddy makes her, especially when it comes to men. My dad actually made the expectation too hard. And then he had to tell me, like, baby, you gonna keep being the bridesmaid? Not the bride. If you keep having these unrealistic expectations. And I'm looking like, well, well, you.
Shannon Sharpe
The one that set those expectations unrealistic.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
Explain to me every man's not gonna be daddy. He can be daddy to you in his own way. He may not look like this. Yes, it doesn't mean he's not a good guy right when it comes to you. So that's what it is. It's folks not understanding what healthy leadership is. Men do the same thing. Men and we'll, you know, pick women who run them, emasculate them, verbally abuse them, talk to them anyway. Because for that man, that's all he knew was that that is how a woman leads.
Shannon Sharpe
This concludes the first half of my conversation. Part two is also posted and you can access it to whichever podcast platform you just listened to part one on. Just simply go back to Club Shay Shay Profile and I'll see you there.
Dr. Cheyenne Bryant
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Date: December 3, 2025
Host: Shannon Sharpe
Guest: Dr. Cheyenne Bryant (Life coach, spiritual mentor, psychology expert, author)
This episode of Club Shay Shay features an in-depth, vulnerable conversation between Shannon Sharpe and Dr. Cheyenne Bryant. Touching on themes of self-discovery, family legacy, relationships, trauma, faith, and healing within the Black community, the episode is equal parts personal testimony and motivational masterclass. Dr. Bryant—celebrating the launch of her new book, "Mental Detox"—shares her journey from a challenging childhood in Los Angeles to becoming a renowned coach, therapist, and media figure. The episode spotlights the power of overcoming adversity, the complexity of family and romantic relationships, and the importance of building a strong sense of self-love and purpose.
Celebration of Milestones: Dr. Bryant opens by sharing excitement about her new double book deal with Random House, supported by 50 Cent, and the launch of "Mental Detox."
“My book, Mental Detox, launched today...I got a double book deal—shout out to 50 Cent, Curtis Jackson, for taking the lead.” (04:26)
Childhood and Family Dynamics: Raised in LA by her grandparents due to her parents having her at 16, Dr. Bryant describes her early life as the daughter of a “street daddy,” with parents immersed in both love and chaos. “I was a product of teenage parents...my father bragged about it all the time—‘baby, you were made from love’... I was conceived in a motel.” (06:08)
Witness to Transformation: Dr. Bryant details her father’s evolution from a major drug dealer and gangster to a successful entrepreneur, showing her both sides of life. “I got to see him go from the hood to the hills...it was really beautiful seeing that.” (07:54)
Determination Born from Adversity: Lacking positive role models, Dr. Bryant shares that her main motivation was, “I don’t want to be here," which propelled her towards education and entrepreneurship. “You do not have to know where you are going. You just have to know you want to get the hell up out of whatever you’re in.” (09:37)
“There was everything in my environment that said, ‘Hell, no. Hell, no, and hell, no.’ And those hell nos got me to all my yeses.” —Dr. Bryant (10:42)
Oldest of Seven, Only Girl: As the firstborn and first grandchild, Dr. Bryant had no blueprint ahead of her—only examples of what not to do.
Siblings and Acceptance: She admits it took until her 20s to fully accept younger siblings from her father’s other relationships, ultimately embracing her identity as the irreplaceable firstborn. “Anyone can replace the baby. You just gotta have another baby. You can never have another firstborn.” (33:06)
Father-Daughter Bond: She credits her strong sense of self-worth, boundaries, and high expectations in men to her father’s straight, real talk. “A woman is what her daddy makes her, especially when it comes to men...it is your responsibility to build that woman up.” (34:46)
Mother’s Addiction and Recovery: Dr. Bryant describes her mother’s decades-long battle with addiction to the drug her father once sold, and her eventual sobriety after a health crisis and surgery. “When I turned her over to Him, God showed me the power of surrender...now, my mom is the vice president of my company.” (19:06)
“As a man thinketh, so be it. So He’s telling you what to think.”
—Dr. Bryant (23:39)
Brutal Honesty about “Type” and Preferences: Dr. Bryant is frank about dating preferences and how her childhood led to her “no kids” rule in partners. “I know my preference of a man with no kids is because growing up as a little girl, I had to share my father with six other siblings. I’m not sharing another man in my life.” (44:53)
Impact of Family Structure: Discussions touch on how decisions around parenthood, co-parenting, and marriage impact children’s emotional and material well-being.
Dealing with Unrealistic Expectations: Both agree perfection is a myth in partnerships; it’s about finding “enough” of what matters most.
Therapy’s Growing Acceptance: Dr. Bryant breaks down barriers to mental health care in the Black community, crediting social media and modeling of vulnerability for the rise in therapy-seeking, especially among Black men. “80% of my clients are celebrities, athletes...and a good 90% are Black, and Black men at the highest rate...have experienced suicide attempt or ideation.” (77:04)
“Men, you should make me work to create a safe space for you so you know you can trust me...you should do that in relationships too.” —Dr. Bryant (81:20)
Shannon’s Vulnerabilities: In a rare, honest exchange, Dr. Bryant guides Shannon toward reflection on his emotional barriers, workaholism, and inherited patterns from his absent father. “Because I’ve never given them all of me—I only gave them what they couldn’t hurt.” —Shannon Sharpe (117:13)
Cycle of Abandonment: Dr. Bryant draws a direct line between Shannon’s father’s absence and his own emotional distance in relationships:
“The same selfishness you described your father as—you have it. And the pain that his selfishness implemented in you is the same pain you’re implementing in everyone you come in contact with...”
(120:46)
Legacy, Love, and Finding Self: Dr. Bryant presses Shannon to invest in himself emotionally, not just transactionally, and to redefine legacy as more than financial provision.
Reality TV: The discussion examines the effect of reality television—its pitfalls, its potential for healing, and its reflection of familiar trauma and aspiration in Black communities.
Social Media & Mental Health: Dr. Bryant notes social media’s positive impact in normalizing therapy and vulnerability for Black men, counteracting generational stoicism around mental health.
“All you really need to know, Shannon, is that I don’t want to go. I’m not staying here.”
—Dr. Cheyenne Bryant (09:18)
“A woman is what her daddy makes her, especially when it comes to men.”
—Dr. Bryant (34:46)
“You just have to enter into it with the willingness to shift and be malleable, not to the woman, but to the opportunity of you being loved and loving somebody back.”
—Dr. Bryant (115:28)
“The mind replays what the heart can’t delete.”
—Shannon Sharpe (123:26)
“Transactional life isn’t really legacy. It just isn’t. It’s nice on paper, yeah, but it’s not legacy. The real wealth and the real legacy is what Deion has. And that’s family.”
—Dr. Bryant (125:23)
| Timestamp | Segment | |---------------|-------------| | 04:26 | Dr. Bryant’s book launch and double book deal | | 06:08 | Early childhood and conception story | | 09:37 | Getting out of a toxic environment—motivation and faith | | 19:06 | Mother’s addiction, recovery, and faith’s role | | 23:39 | Faith, thought patterns, and manifesting reality | | 33:06 | Sibling acceptance and the ‘firstborn’ mindset | | 34:46 | The parental blueprint—fathers and daughters | | 44:53 | Dating preferences and sibling rivalry’s influence | | 68:25 | The difference between transparency and honesty | | 77:04 | Therapy and Black community healing | | 81:20 | The challenge of creating a safe space for Black men | | 120:46 | Dr. Bryant confronts Shannon about family patterns and emotional barriers | | 125:23 | Redefining legacy—family vs. transactional success |
To hear Part 2, visit the Club Shay Shay profile on your preferred podcast platform.