← The Deep End With Lecrae
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February 2015. I'm in a Staples Center. I'm at the Grammy Awards for the first time. I'm not nominated in the gospel category. I'm not nominated in the Christian category. I am nominated for the best rap performance. The red carpet is like the most honest measurement that there is of how famous you actually are. So the carpet told me something very clear that night. It told me that I have won four Grammy Awards. I'm not even sure how many BET Awards, multiple platinum albums. I had, a Billboard number one. I have been a New York Times bestseller. And yet, and still I stood in a room in Los Angeles full of some of the most famous people in the world, felt insignificant. And I want to tell you about that. I want to take you behind the scenes to the world of entertainment, to the world of fame. I want to take you to places that people don't talk about and realities they don't share. I want to take you on a journey. This is the deep end with Lecrae. I have won four Grammy Awards. I'm not even sure how many BET Awards. I've won a Billboard award. I have multiple platinum albums. I had a Billboard number one. I have been a New York Times bestseller, best selling author. And yet, and still I stood in a room in Los Angeles full of probably some of the most famous people in the world and felt insignificant. And I want to tell you about that and tell you how accomplishment and fame is not always what you think it is. I want to take you behind the scenes to the world of entertainment, to the world of fame. I want to take you to places that people don't talk about and realities they don't share. And I got to take you back in time for that to happen. So welcome to the deep end. My name is Lecrae. I'll be your guide. So let's go back in time. I want to take you back about 10, 11 years. So it's February 2015. I'm in a Staples center in Los Angeles, and I'm at the Grammy Awards, right? And for the first time in my career, because I've been doing this at this point in time for like, 10 years, but for the first time in my career, I'm not nominated in the gospel category. I'm not nominated in a Christian category. I am nominated for the best rap performance. Not only am I nominated for the best rap performance, I'm going against Eminem, Drake, and Kendrick Lamar. And that's not a small thing to me for a lot of reasons. For somebody who grew up in Hip hop. To be up against these Giants was a big deal. Everyone's calling my phone, and I remember Sway saying, man, you're probably gonna win. I was like, how can I possibly win? He's like, because the votes are gonna come down. They're gonna be so divided that you're gonna end up, you know. And so I got all these people in my ear now, mind you, at this point in time, I'd already won two Grammys. But by that point, you know, those wins had come in. What's the best way? I'm trying to be nice. I mean, they came in categories that. That the industry treats like the little kids table, right? So, you know, it's gospel, it's Christian. That's like, oh, that's cool. That's cute. You know what I mean? But this nomination is different because this one was saying, like, oh, that guy that has that alternative message, that guy that. That is a rapper like everybody else, but he talks about Jesus. Just got a seat at the actual table, right? Not the side table, not the little kids table, but the table table according to the industry, so to speak, right? So like I said, I'm in la. I'm getting out the car at the Staples Center. We're running a little bit behind schedule, which is a whole whole other thing. Like, that was a whole nother thing, but we're running behind schedule, which is not a good thing for artists of my stature specifically at that time, right? Because if you know how red carpets work, being late is like a rookie mistake. The reason why is because the biggest stars in the entire world generally show up right before the show starts because they don't have to compete for attention. So they like, man, what time the show start? I'm getting there right before it starts. I'm gonna do my little red carpet, and then I'm out. They don't have to waste time. They don't have to sit around. And plus, it's uncomfortable for them. They're massive. They're super famous, and it's like, man, I just gotta stand around while everyone's grabbing on me. It's like, they want to get there, do their interviews, take the pictures, go sit down, show begins. So, you know, you try to get there early, like a couple hours early. If the red carpet opens at 4, the show starts at 6. You want to be there at 4, because at 5:30, 5:50, the biggest stars in the world are gonna. Maybe 5:30. Yeah, the biggest stars in the world are gonna be there, right? So everybody, like myself, everybody else is still trying to be seen. They get there early so they're not standing next to freaking Taylor Swift and hoping that a reporter even looks their way. Cause you're not gonna get no attention. You're sly. It's like being. Like being in a party and you're trying to talk to the cute girl, but you're a seven. And the 10 walks in, and it's like you're cooked. And you know what I mean? So anyway, so I get out the car late, and I remember telling myself, look, bro, you at the Grammys. Like, just be in the moment. Like, don't trip. You just be in the moment, you know? Got the tuxedo pressed. And I was looking fly this year, too. My shoes shined up, and I'm nominated in a category that actually matters. So I'm thinking, oh, this we doing big things. So I get in line for the red carpet, and the reporters start. You know, they start passing on me. Like, you know, the. The line. There's. There's reporters, like, in the line for the red carpet, and there's reporters, like, on the red carpet. So the reporters. When you start walking down, you know, there's reporters who like, hey, oh, hey, let me do you. Let me talk to you. Let me talk to you. Let me talk to you. And reporters just, like, they don't say nothing to me, right? They're not rude about it. They're just moving on. Like, they're not speaking. So I remember. I remember seeing one of them waving at somebody. So I'm thinking, like, he. Oh, he's waving at me, like, trying to get my attention. So I'm finally like, oh, this person probably knows me. Maybe they're a Christian. You know, I'm thinking it's me. And then I realize they're not waving at me. They're waving at Questlove, who's like, a few feet behind me. So I'm just like, okay, it. You know, it's cool. It. I need some humility. This is humbling. It's a humbling process, right? So then I get to the end of the carpet, right? And this is the spot where, you know, you stand in front of the giant Grammys backdrop, And there's like, 40 photographers, and it changes. Like, sometimes you do the pictures first, then you do the reporters. Sometimes you do the reporters first, then you do the pictures. It changes. But anyway, so there's like 40 photographers. And, I mean, they're waiting there. They're supposed to light you up when you hit that carpet, right? So there's Like a line. It's like a backlog. And there's just all these people, like, waiting to get on the red carpet. So it's just a backlog, a line. And I'm jumping in the line. I'm about to get onto the red carpet, and then security puts his hand up, like, hey, wait, wait. So I'm like, all right, cool. Then he waves the person behind me through instead. Like, you chill. Person behind you. You. Come on. Now. Some of this is like, your publicist and just. It's a priority thing, but I'm late, so I. You know what I'm saying? It's like I'm not realizing, like, oh, shoot, I'm small guy. And it's like, I'm not priority. So I'm like, okay, not a big deal. I realize there's bigger artists around me, so this is crazy, because now when I think about these names, like, anyway, I'm not even gonna go there. So Iggy Azalea walks through, right? Cameras go off like fireworks. Cha, cha, cha, cha, cha, cha, cha, cha, cha, cha. And then, you know, he's like, wait. Then he waves through Rick Ross. So I still wait. I'm just waiting. Then it's like, no, no, no. Next Wiz Khalifa, you know? Then freaking Taylor Swift, y'. All. Taylor Swift. You know, I can't do nothing. It's like, I'm chilling. Camera's going crazy. Takes a minute. Taylor, right here. Taylor, look here. Taylor. Taylor, Taylor. Taylor. Taylor, over here. Taylor, over here. Look over here. Smile. Taylor. Taylor. After Taylor, I'm waiting. It's cool. I know I'm next. But no Keith Urban. Freaking Keith Urban. All right, I'm chilling. You know what I'm saying? I'm chilling after Taylor Swift. After Keith Urban. Then freaking Ziggy Marley. So it's like, Taylor Swift, Keith Urban, Ziggy Marley. And then I start losing count, right? Like, I just lose count after a while. And I'm standing there with my wife because I was excited to bring my wife on the red carpet with me. It was going to be, like a moment. We take the pictures together, like all the celebrities do, you know, you. You're a kid. You're looking at all the people. Will and Jada and freaking Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie or people, like, bring their family. And I was like, yo, I'm bringing my wife with me. It's going to be cool. It's a moment. So we are standing there, and my wife just throws her hands up after a while, and she's like, yo, I Got to go. She got. I got on these heels. I. This is. I can't just stand here. And she was right, because there was no reason for both of us to just be standing there. So y'. All. 45 minutes. That's how long I stood at that rope before the guy waved me through. 45 minutes I waited. That's how many other people got waved through before me. So then when I finally walk up to the. To the backdrop, right? Tuxedos still fly, smiling, you know, before. Invisalign smile. So it was like a crooked smile. I'm not exaggerating. Almost every camera in front of me lowered. Like, I counted later. It was like five out of 40 photographers actually took my picture. So if you look. If you Google, like, 2015 Grammys images or whatever, like, five out of 40 took my picture. And I've. And I've. I wonder if those five felt pity for me. Like, yo, somebody take this man's picture now over the. There's one guy I do know. He's like a believer. He loves me. He. I see him everywhere. He always takes my pictures. So I'll be grateful for him. Cause I know I'm gonna get at least one getty picture out of this dude, right? So, you know, I feel like they felt bad for me. Now, some people will tell you. I'll tell you all that. I'll tell you this. Some people are gonna tell you that the red carpet is, like, the honest. The most honest measurement that there is of how famous you actually are, right? Not how talented or how respected in the rooms that matter to you, but, like, how famous in the way the industry measures fame. And that's literally true, right? So the carpet told me something very clear that night. It told me that I am not one of them, right? Not yet. Maybe not ever. But not in the way that they meant it, right? So I already had two Grammys. They sitting at the shelf at the house. I'm nominated in literally the biggest category of my entire career. Previously, I had a number one album in the country, and I stood on that carpet feeling like I crashed somebody's party. Like I was a wedding crasher. Like, what are you? Who are you, and what are you doing here? So I tell you the story so that we can, like, sit in this for a second. Because the question I would ask is, I think a lot of, you know, like, that feeling I'm talking about, right? Even if you've never been on a red carpet in your life, if you've never been in that place, you Know what I'm talking about? That feeling that achievement is supposed to fix, right? That outsider feeling. The. The. The, like, I'm not quite enough feeling. And now you. You're talking about a guy with some wounds. Because everybody might not wrestle this. I have some historical trauma, abandoned by my dad, which probably left me feeling away. I was a latchkey kid, so I just wasn't, like, nurtured. I was always praised for my capabilities and my talent. So I always felt like I need to show what I can do, which gets into my relationship with God and, like, him me feeling accepted by God. But, like, it's why I never had birthday parties or I never invited my friends to a party because I was always afraid, what if they don't come? I would rather not have a party than deal with the fear of being rejected. So I never invited people to a birthday party. It was always my cousins or, like, my best friend, and that was it. Like, I would never. I could not fathom, like, inviting the whole school, like, y' all come to my party, and then, like, nobody show up. Like, I would feel. So I'd rather just not do it. You know, the question is, like, why? Why was this still with me right there in that tuxedo at the Grammys, right? Why is that feeling still there? Even though I'm as famous as I could have possibly been in that moment? Or as a decorated New York Times bestselling author, number one album in the country, two time Grammy Award winner, nominated in the category of best rap album with Drake. Anytime they see who's nominated, my name is right there, right? So why? Well, I thought fame would fix things, and I want to talk to y' all about that. So let's talk about it. All right, so now you got to rewind a few hours to that same week before the carpet. So I was in. I'm in la, and I get invited to the Roc Nation brunch. So Jay Z and Beyonce, they rent out this amazing mansion. Mansion's crazy, crazy mansion. Let's not. It wasn't nothing wild going on. There's press. There ain't no wildness. Ain't no sacrificing of animals and demons and Illuminati. You know, there was other Christians there. I seen. I think I seen Tasha Cobb there. I seen Molly music there. I mean, I'm trying to justify it. There was nothing crazy going on, but it was beautiful. So I'm gonna paint this picture for you because it matters for what I'm gonna tell you, right? You got the cigars in the air, like, you know, big old cigars. Big, big business dudes smoking a big cigars like they've won a championship. Ace of spades, champagne, like, getting poured out like water. And I. I did drink at the time. I don't drink now. I did drink at the time. I didn't drink any. I wanted to so bad, but I just knew people were around and I just was concerned about people's perception of me and I'm. And my witness and so. Which is a whole nother conversation I'm not going to get into. But everybody is dressed amazingly like. But the logo's small on their clothes, so it looks like they not trying. But it's expensive enough, so you knew they were trying. You know what I mean? It's like. Or, you know, it's like they're not gonna just show up in like something average. Like that's. That's not off the rack. You know, it didn't take long to notice that there were basically like classes of people at the party. Like, it's like two classes in a sense. There's this gazebo in the middle, and in the gazebo, there's security standing around the big stars. I'm talking about the big stars. So they're in this gazebo. It's a big lawn pool, the whole nine. But then there's like a gazebo that's covered in the middle. And I mean, Jay Z's in there, Kanye's in there, Rihanna, Beyonce, Nicki Minaj, they're there, the big dogs. And then everywhere else, just kind of like orbiting the gazebo was everybody else. Like, they still famous. Don't get it twisted. Like, they're famous or they're almost famous or they're like hoping to be famous, but they're definitely all talented. Like, at the time, it was Donald Glover, who's massive now, but at the time, you know, he was bubbling. So like, just think like Donald Glover, right? And you know, it was like, I don't know, it was kind of like there were certain people inside the circle and then people outside the circle, right? But the people outside the circle were still popular, still famous, still accomplished by every measure. They just weren't in that gazebo circle. So. So I'm a people watcher. That's just by nature. Like, I'm always out. You can catch me in Atlanta. I'm on a belt line. You catch me in la. I'm on Runyon Canyon. And I'm there. Cause there's lots of people around. Like, I don't want to be by myself, but I'm kind of an introvert. But I like being around people. But I'll be to myself. I'm just watching a scene. I mean, I talk to people, but I'm like a social introvert, but in rooms like that where I don't really know my environment like that. I'm a watcher. I'm chilling. I'm introverted. So I just told myself before I even walked in, I'm just going to observe. You know, I'm on my business, you know, I know people are like, did you go in here and just start sharing the gospel with people and telling this about Jesus and so on and so forth? No, I just. It was like a new world. And this is my first exposure to this level of, like, celebrity, which is an invisible thing, if I'm being honest. But it's something that we create. It's not, like, real, but it seems like it's real, but it's not real. We made it. That's a whole nother conversation. But it's. No, that's. I mean, it's like, think about it. They're only famous because we give them that. Like, we put them in this place where they're otherworldly. They're not otherworldly. They're just you and I. It just seems. Because I've seen it happen. I've seen people chase me through the mall, and I'm like, what do you think? Like, I am. Like, I don't have a power. Like. Like, it's like, I called him. I was with Lecrae. Like, you were with Darrell's husband. You were with Ormi's son. Like, I'm not a superhero. I'm just me, you know, with ashy knuckles or something. You know what I mean? But so I'm just watching, right? And I did that for, like, 20 minutes. And then I had a realization, right, that it stuck with me and it stayed with me, that nobody came up to talk to me. Like, literally not one person. Well, okay, the. The record executives who saw me as a way to make some money, I got a number one album. Like, blah, blah, blah. Cause, matter of fact, I remember Barry Weiss was in that room, and he was like, man, does Kanye know you? And I was like, I don't know. You never met Kanye? I said, nah, I never met him. He's like, you gotta meet Kanye. And he, like, calls Kanye over. He's like, kanye, come over here. He's like, you gotta meet Lecrae. And I'm like, all Right. But I know Barry wants to sign me to Def Jam, so that's kind of why he's doing this. You gotta meet Kanye. So Kanye comes over here, and he's like, kanye, this is Le Craze. You heard his music. He was like, nah, I ain't heard it. He was like, he's got the number one album in the country right now. He's like, oh, word? That's the. Oh, I might have to check you out. And he's like. And he's on a spiritual vibe. Like, you know what? He's like, you. Yeah, he's on a spiritual tip. And it was funny because ye was like, all right, I'm gonna check you out. I didn't think much of it. I was like, that's dope. I met Kanye. I grew up listening to his music. He's gonna check my music out, whatever. But Barry was kinda like, I can't believe he didn't. You know, he didn't. That's embarrassing. He should know who you are. I didn't care. I mean, I was just like, bro, I just met Ye. Doesn't bother me. He doesn't know my music. Not a big deal. But like I said, no one came to talk to me. So I'm gonna be honest. What was happening inside of me in that moment is this, like, the. The heart of what I want to talk about is what was going on inside of me. So part of me was looking around and thought, oh, my gosh, this is high school. It's high school with expensive clothes and shoes. These are adults who should know better, but they're still hovering around the popular, the cool kids table, and they're hoping to get noticed. And it's silly if you really think about it. It's small and it's petty, and it's like, what? This is stupid. Like, this is still going on. Like, everybody's like, yo, Jay Z. Yo, Beyonce. What's up, man? You know, fighting for a dap. Or it's like, yo, they was there, and it's like just trying to be. Look like you're part of the cool kids crew. Like, oh, I see him behind Jay or with Rihanna, and it was just weird. I know I'm taking a long time to get to my point. I'm sorry. But listen, the other part of me, it's a part I'm not proud of. Still wanted to be in. Wanted to be part of the in crowd. I wanted to be one of the people under that gazebo instead of one of the people on the Outside of it. I wanted to be liked. I wanted to be picked. I wanted to be chosen. And I think if we're being honest, that's not like, some unique character flaw that I have. That's being human, right? Who doesn't want to be picked? Who doesn't want to be accepted? Who. Who? I mean, if I take you further back than that party, then I think you can understand why that feeling has so much power over me. It's because I spent most of my life, most of my. Not my life, but my entire career being called Christian rapper. It's a label that I was never fully comfortable with for a lot of different reasons. And it's not because I'm ashamed of my faith. I'm absolutely not. Because if somebody told me today, hey, I need you to deny the faith or die, guess what? I'm dying today. No hesitation. Like you, you know, but it's the label that puts you in this box that doesn't actually fit the music. And it puts you in this specific kind of like, no man's land. Like, what is it like? You know? So I. I tell the story often. Like, I remember going to the Sacramento Kings practice, and I got my stack of church clothes, mixtapes, my first mixtape. And I'm. Bobby D. Johnson's the coach of the team at the time. And he's, like, introduced me to the team. Like, yo, here's the gospel rapper. He's got some music for y'. All. And I remember nobody took one. And then I remember boogie. You know, he told me straight up, nah, I don't do no gospel rap. I don't want no Bible verses in my rap. So I was trying to explain. And now my music ain't really like that. Like, it's about fatherlessness and insecurity in real life, you know, it is about Jesus, for sure, but it ain't what you think it is. Like, it's testimonial. But it didn't matter because the label had already decided for him what was inside that box before he ever opened it. And the reason why I think these insecurities were rising up in me is because I dealt with this so much. This is a lot of people don't understand. People think I'm trying to sell out by saying, oh, I'm not a Christian rapper, but I'm getting damaged in certain places and areas. And it's not for taking a stand. It's not like they're rejecting the gospel. Like, it's. It's this. And maybe. Maybe I could have grown from this, maybe I should not have been so concerned. Maybe I should have took it as, like, persecution, perhaps, but like another. Like, I remember being in North Carolina at a radio station, and they were telling me they love the sound, but they just don't play gospel. They were like, the songs weren't allowed to be heard just as songs, right? There was no neutral ground where my music got to exist without somebody deciding in advance what it was allowed to be. And I was like, bro, if you listen to Coming In Hot, there's nothing about it that's, you know, that says this is the same as Chris Tomlin or Kirk Franklin. I mean, there. I mean, there's plenty of redeemable content in the song, but what are you rejecting? And it's a double standard, because then you could talk about guns and killing and drugs and lean, and I can't talk about Jesus. That's a whole nother conversation. That was super frustrating to me as well. So what was happening under the surface long before I went to the Grammys was I did not fully belong in industry rooms because I was the Christian dude. And then I didn't really belong in a lot of the church spaces either, because I was making music with, you know, these mainstream artists or doing things that red is compromised. What a lot of people don't understand, too, is, man, even before I was making songs with mainstream arts, the church still was rejecting me. They were like, we don't want that hip hop. There was a dude named Craig Lewis or something who was like, man, hip hop's of the devil. And it was like, bro, we could not go anywhere and be accepted. So it's like wherever you go. People wanted me to pick a lane, stay in a room, and, you know, I wasn't. It was like, there's two rooms, and I'm not fully accepted in either one. And so what what I believe, that's a long way of saying what I'm trying to get to. What I believe is what happens to us is that. Or at least what happened to me is that when you don't fully belong anywhere, then achievement starts to look like the fix, right? Not like some cartoon villain. Like, I want to rule the world, and this is my origin story, you know, but, like, smaller than that. Like, it's more human than that. It's like, if I can just win the award, you know, the real rappers will respect me, and then I can land the feature, and then the co sign and nomination in the category, that actually counts. And then maybe I'll finally be in whatever in is right. Maybe the outsider feeling will finally go away. And I'm telling on myself, and I know a lot of people. See, I always knew he wanted to be accepted, y'. All. I think a lot of us are running, you know, that exact same math in our own heads and our own lives. It's just not in the music industry. Right. It's different currency. It's not a Grammy for you, but maybe it's a promotion or maybe it's a title, or maybe it's the number of followers, or maybe it's the relationship that finally makes people ask, like, when are you going to settle down? Or whatever it is, like, it's hanging out with certain people. If some part of you believes that once you get this box checked, then you'll finally feel like you belong. That's the problem with fame. That's the problem with success. That's the whole point. Right? What we're doing is we're asking achievement to do a soul job. And achievement is not built to carry that kind of weight. Right? So I just. I had to begin to understand that the emptiness that I was feeling was not going to be solved with getting in the right room. It was not going to. Like, I sat in rooms with the biggest celebrities. What makes you feel like you haven't arrived when you're literally sitting. I remember being at Michael Jordan's party in Houston, Michael Jordan's birthday party. I'm in there and I'm literally sitting in this room. I'm talking to Nas and I'm talking to Michael Jordan and Beyonce, and I'm there. And you still don't feel like you made it. You still don't feel like you're enough. You still feel like there's something missing. That's a soul level issue that no award, achievement or acceptance by a person is ever gonna fix. That's an identity issue. And I think that the assumption is that people wanna be famous so they can look down on people. No, people wanna be famous cause something's broken. And I talk to my daughter about this all the time because she's like, she used to want to be famous. And I'd be like, man, what is that that you're after? Like, what's underneath that? What do you want the fame to do? And I think if we lift the lid up, like, maybe because she was a kid, she couldn't fully answer it, but if we lift the lid up, we want significance. We want to matter. We want to matter. So I had to do double work to make sure, like, hey, you know, you matter. Like, what do I need to tell her consistently to let her know, you're valuable, you're worthy, you matter, you're desirable. All those things are necessary so that she has an understanding that her worth and her value is not hinged on her performance or her acceptance in certain spaces and places. So anyway, if we fast forward past the Grammys, right, we go past that whole era because, you know, by the time I wrote Unashamed the. The book, it seemed like I arrived. And I don't say that to brag. I just say that because it's true. I went to Grammy. My music's now on mainstream radio, so I got relationships in all the spaces that I felt called to reach because I really was a missionary. You got to hear me on this. I was not. The fame was a byproduct. It was never something I was chasing. I was always trying to be a missionary in the culture. The fame was a byproduct, and I think it's a tool that Satan used. It was like, oh, okay, all right, I see you. You trying to make Jesus known in public spaces and places. I'm gonna dig into a wound, a rejection wound that you have, an abandonment wound that you have. And so now people who were, you know, there are people who've been to the top of their own professions were now giving me respect and acknowledgement, right? Every external measure, I was at the top of my game. Kendrick Lamars to, you know, everybody, right, Was like. Knew who I was. Pharrell came dab me up. I walked into the. The label offices. Pharrell's like, oh, my gosh, bro. I love what you're doing, Pharrell. I'm like, pharrell is telling me, I love what you're doing. We gotta connect. He shoots me his number. We gotta do something. I'm like, that's crazy to me. Underneath all of that, there's something else happening that the awards did not have the ability to see or to touch, right? My public appearances, my BET Interviews, all the award shows, all the acceptance speeches, they turned into something that people were basically auditing, right? Was there a scripture reference in there? Was there not a scripture reference in there? Did you share the gospel? Did you say what you're supposed to say? Did you tell so and so about Jesus? And if it did, I say Jesus enough times, this song, and if it wasn't there, y', all, it was like a sign that I was drifting, that I was compromising. Because we only have one category. If you're that Famous as I was, you must be compromising. You gotta be. And I remember. I remember doing a song with big crit, mayday. And I mean, we got hit with so much backlash. It was like over and over again. I remember sitting there just scrolling through it and just saying out loud, like. Like, these people are super tribal. And then I had to be uncomfortable because later I realized I was just as tribal in my own way. It wasn't like them, right? But I was still tribal. It's not just them. It's me, too. So now the public appearances, they stopped being something that I was excited to do. And then, you know, I started like, ah, you know, I don't know how I feel about this. And it's not because I didn't love what I was doing, but it's because I never knew which version of me the people were gonna decide they caught on camera that day, right? So it was like, who do they want me to be? And now I'm worried in interviews, like, did I say enough? Are they gonna judge me for this? I'm so. It's such a fear of man issue, because at the core of my existence, there's this fear of rejection. I had not understood that my identity was shaped and formed by God and not by man. And that took me years to process. It took me therapy, years of process, but I hadn't gotten there. So fame wasn't. Fame was not any of the things that people think it is. Everybody wants it. But achievement, fame, whatever you want to call it, it doesn't fix anything, right? So let me wind this out, because it's not just a famous person problem, right? Cause I got a lot of close friends. They're professionals. In lots of different places, I'm professional athletes. I watched some of my athlete friends. I watch them up close. And what that kind of attention does to a person. All those tweets get picked apart, those posts. Every game gets recorded and rewatched, and they argue about by different strangers. And then you get mobbed. And, you know, when you walk into a room. And then for a lot of guys, that attention, it doesn't stay outside of them. It starts to become a part of who they are. Right? I remember Jeremy Lynn and I, you know, that's my dog. Shout out to Jeremy Lin. But he was like, man, it gets to me. I have to, like, not pay attention to it because I start to. My identity starts getting shaped and formed by what's being said about me on sportscenter. I mean, remember Linsanity? Linsanity was Crazy. If you're a sports fan, Jeremy Lin played for the New York Knicks. You know about linsanity, where he had, like, multiple games in a row. He was just killing it, you know, 25 plus points, going crazy. And it was like, everybody has something good to say, but then people also had something bad to say, and then his teammates had things, and it was like a whole big thing. And he was like, man, that messed with his mental health because there's all this commentary about him, and I think oftentimes we forget these are really just people. So the hard question is, like, the one that should scare us a little bit is what happens when the game is over, right? When you got an injury, when you grow, when you get too old, when you have a bad season, or when you don't produce what everyone expects you to produce? What happens to a person whose whole sense of who I am was built on what they can do right on the field, on the court or whatever? What happens when that gets taken away? And y', all, I'm telling you, I watched it happen to so many people that I love. And what I didn't get for a long time was that that was the exact same thing that was happening to me. It was just a microphone and not a jersey, right? So if your identity is not secured in knowing who God has created you to be, then you will always scrape and reach for things to add to your worth and your value, Things that were never meant to be there. There's a story of. I believe it's a true story of, you know, a soldier in war in the middle east, and they were coming under fire, and he was struggling with the comms communication of what he needed to do. And now they're coming under crazy fire, and their trucks, the jeeps they were riding in, would get blown up, right? And it would cause problems. So he was like, man, I'm trying to get information back to headquarters about, like, our trucks getting blown up all the time. And, you know, he's not hearing back. He's not hearing back. And so he just took it upon himself, and he's like, man, forget this. I'm going against protocol, and I'm gonna start drilling these metal plates under our trucks so that when we drive over the bombs, the trucks don't get blown up. And, you know, I think for us, that's a lot of who we are. We're people who are saying, God, I'm not hearing from you. I'm not getting the right comms communication, whether. Because I'm not reading My word. I'm not studying. I'm not doing what I need to be doing. And because of that, I'm just going to drill some pieces onto myself to help me feel more secure out here. And, you know, it's not that there's anything wrong with achievement, right? There's nothing wrong with that. It's just that, man, if we're not spending time connected to the giver of our identity and our worth and our purpose, we're going to start finding other things to. So I'm. Platinum records become my shield. Platinum songs and acceptance by other people because I'm not spending enough time in communication with leadership to understand what I'm supposed to be doing. And now on one end of the spectrum, it's like, well, it's working, right? Like, they're not getting blown up anymore. But the problem was where they were taking the metal from was creating a problem somewhere else. And so, again, you can't. You know the saying of, like, you don't fix sin by sinning more, right? It just creates more problems in the end. And I'm not saying it's a sin to drill the pieces on. What I'm saying is, like, there's. We're broken people, and we're looking for things on earth to give us a sense of being put back together, when really underneath that, we're just as broken. Instead of getting healing and wholeness from understanding who God made us to be, we're looking for the acceptance and the awards and the applause to give us a sense of purpose. And I guess the peak of what I want you to see is that, like, the fame doesn't fix anything, right? It didn't remove the outsider feeling. It just gave the outsider feeling better production value. It's like more scrutiny, more performance, more people with strong opinions about if I was real or if I'm not. Like, none of that achievement could heal the wounds underneath. It was just. It just put a bigger audience in the room to watch to see if I was healed or not. And nobody tells you that part. Nobody tells you when you're trying to climb mountain. Nobody tells you that. That the view from the top does not fix you. It's just more people are watching to see if you are fixed. And we're not. We're all giraffes on roller skates. We are all giraffes on roller skates. Everybody. There's no everybody. I don't care who you're looking at, like, oh, they got it together. No, they don't. They're Trying to figure it out, just like you. They don't have it together. Now, they may be a step ahead of you, a half a step ahead of you in understanding truth, but like, maturity and growth is not about how much you know. It's about how much you know has changed you. Right? Because pain and trauma and disappointment and despair don't go away just because you age. Your threshold of navigating, it grows as you mature, right? So fame didn't fix nothing. Matter of fact, I seen it, like, tear apart people's lives. But at the same time, fame also is not the culprit. It's the exposure of the lack of security that people already have. People like, oh, he's gonna get famous and he's gonna drift away. No, he was already susceptible to drifting away. He was never healed in the places he needed to be healed in the first place. And I will say the fame has been the conduit of what God has used to do, the healing work in me. Because I got to see how empty it was and how it didn't satisfy the most depressed time of my life. I'm in my dream house, I got my dream car, and I want to die. And that's what God used to show me. Oh, this stuff doesn't do anything, right? So again, like, the fame, the success, we know it doesn't solve the problems. But we also need to remember that it's not the culprit either. It's the exposure to what's really going on. I was saying recently how I've been trying to lose weight. I've been dieting, been working on my health, my fitness. On top of that, I've been focusing on, like, parenting. Cause I got a kid who's going off to college and just want to make sure I'm doing things the right way. Got another kid who's entering high school. And then finances. I've been thinking through, like, okay, they're gonna be adults. What do I wanna do? I wanna leave behind. Like, I don't care about me. I'm great with my existence. But if any excess I have, I wanna leave behind to family. So I get my gym membership, I start my diet, it's going good. I meet with my wife, we talk about parenting. Great. Meet with the financial advisor. Great. All these are great things. Parenting, health, financial stewardship. None of them are great things. But what I realized is they started to become the thing, right? They started to become the thing that I focused on. And. And I don't mean like in like a. I don't know, again, like, evil villain, like, all I want to do is get the money and be us and have a six pack and ha ha ha. But. But no. Subtly, subtly, I've told myself without realizing it that if I check these boxes before I die, I did my job. Subtly, I've said to myself, if I get my finances together, if I get healthy, stay healthy till I die, and I parent my kids and am a good steward and raise them well, by gosh, I did my job on this planet and subtly, I replaced God's kingdom with my kingdom. That's how subtle it is. That's all success does, is it gives you new boxes to check, new distractions to focus on, so that I think people think there's some kind of mysterious power behind celebrity and fame. No, it's the same thing going on in your life. It's just more people watching you check boxes, bigger boxes. Okay, but we're all trying to check boxes in order to feel secure and like, we made it and like, we're accepted and like, we matter and. And at the end of the day, those boxes are our own kingdom. Meanwhile, Jesus is like, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. We're so concerned subconsciously with checking our own little boxes that we forget, oh, wait a minute. My health, my finances, my parenting should be submitted to the father. Hey, God, what do you want to do with my health? What do you want to do with my money? With the money that you've asked me to steward, what do you want to do with my parenting? What do you want to do with my music? What do you want to do with my career? Instead, we create boxes that we have to check in order to feel like we did it. Instead of saying, God, what boxes are I need to check the box of your kingdom come, Your will be done. And so practically, what does that even mean? Because I know it sounds good, but practically it's like, what does my prayer life even look like, right? Like, is that your kingdom come, your will be done? Are we saying, I want to move to la? Are we saying, God, put me where you want me to be, where I can do what you've asked me to do? Are we saying, I want to make $10 million, or are we saying, God, give me a vision for what you want to do with my life and fund that, right? Like, give me a vision, Lord, what do you see me doing in the world? And then can you fund that, please? Right? I want to raise X type of child how about, you know, oh, my kid has to be this, this, this. How about your why changes to like, I want them to be well behaved, not so they don't embarrass me, but so that they demonstrate what grace and love showcases in the life of somebody who's been parented. Well, what about that? Again, I'm saying, like, we're all broken in so many ways and the kingdom has got to be our priority. Not these boxes that we check that make us feel like we matter. God. God's already given us identity. He tells us in Ephesians that we are valuable, we're worthy, we are made in his likeness and his image, that we're his workmanship created for things he's already pre planned. Why are we so obsessed with trying to figure out how to add pieces to that? So I don't want to reiterate every detail of different seasons of my life, you know, on this microphone today. Like, I just want you to understand why I think it matters. And it's not because I'm trying to hide anything, right? I wrote a whole book. You can go read it. I wrote two books, actually. But it's because there's specific details, you know, that aren't actually the point. It's the pattern is the point. And I think if I hand you a pattern instead of like a highlight reel, it's more useful to you because now your version of this is not like it doesn't look like mine. So this is what I'm just going to tell you plainly, right? Behind the awards, behind the accolades, there's real things breaking that no trophy had power to even see or fix, right? My inner world, my marriage, my presence with my own kids. The thing that, that let us all. That the thing that let all of us see, right? Was unaddressed, right? It's the thing that I guess I'm articulating is what needed to be addressed was unaddressed. And it was unaddressed way longer than it should have been, right? And I kept repeating to myself, oh, it's not that bad. It's not that bad. You know, I'll figure it out, you know, God, pray about it, you know, and that, that sentence is the problem. It's not that bad. It's the problem because that sentence lets things break real slowly, real quietly. And that's how Satan is. He's subtle. So for years, while everything looks good on the outside, you can stand in front of a room and be proud of what God had done through the music and you can go home and not really be present for the people who knew you. Who knew me. Right. So I guess the awards and the accolades don't have the ability to see that gap and they can't close it either. And I don't say that for sympathy. I just say that because I think a lot of us are managing stuff right now. And it may not be like addiction or what I went through, but I bet everybody listening has some sort of, it's not that bad. I'll figure it out. Running quietly in the background of your life. Which is one of the reasons why I created Reconstruct you. Because I think a lot of people are stuck in ways they don't understand. They're stuck. Right? So, Seamus plug go to start.restructyou.com check that out. Join our community. But you got a marriage, you got a habit, you got disconnected from your kids while you're chasing some version of whatever the red carpet is. You know, your promotion is not going to see the gap between where you are and where you should be. Your follower count is not going to see that. Whatever's giving you that outside appearance that, oh, you made it, you, you've arrived, you checked the boxes. It's not built to look underneath itself, right? Only you can do that. And only you can say if it, you know, like, nah, it is actually worse than I think it is. Fame doesn't fix anything. Achievement doesn't fix anything. I think that's what I'm trying to drill home. And I told the stories because I wanted to paint a picture for the emptiness I still felt when I got to the top, top, tops. And I don't even know if I accomplished that goal by telling these stories. If I had to recap it, this is what I would say. I made it, y'. All, Whatever it is, I made it, right? If you're a musician, number one album. You did it. You won Grammy. You did it like you got to hang out with the stars. You're in the room, you're there. And I still did not feel secure because I was broken when I went in there. And none of the things in that room could fix it. It's why you ask the billionaire, how much is enough? He says, just a little bit more. There is nothing on this earth that will fulfill us. You know, it's. If you don't know that God has already given you so much worth and value that Jesus is literally created a kingdom and made you a co heir. And that's what you have to think about and look forward to and if your vision of accomplishment or, now you've arrived is not. Does not have a picture of you standing before God hearing, well done, my good and faithful servant, your vision is too small. If your vision of arriving or accomplishment is not looking back on your life and seeing like, this is what I did for the sake of the kingdom. And I'm not talking about, like, oh, man. I mean, maybe it is for you to preach the gospel on the corner, but I'm saying, like, just in your everyday life, did you treat people with love and care and compassion? Did you invite truth into spaces? Did you let the Holy Spirit guide you and lead you in different circumstances? Were you patient with your children? Did you pray with them? Did you show them a picture of what it looked like to love Jesus? Like, did you ask God for moments to just introduce truth into the environment? That if that's not included in your. Like, I've arrived bucket. Your bucket is wrong. If that's not the wall your ladder's leaning against, your ladder's on the wrong wall. Yeah, I could belabor this, but again, I'll say, man, I don't want you to be like me. I've achieved so much. I've accomplished so much only to find out there was no pot of gold at the end of that rainbow, and only to find out that I could have found fulfillment and wholeness before I ever tried to climb this wall of success, which would have made the journey that much more exciting and not as traumatic, because I would have known who I was and whose I was in that process. So where I'm at now is at a place where, man, I am. I mean, we're. None of us are. We're all the walking wounded. None of us are fully healed. We won't be fully healed till we arrive in the presence of the Lord. But where I'm at now is sober. I'm sober about my brokenness. I'm sober about my temptations, and I'm sober about my worth and my value. And I'm more confident that I don't have anything to prove. I'm more confident that I'm already somebody when I walk into the room. And not in an arrogant way, but in a confident way. Like, not because anything I've accomplished, but because, man, I'm a child of God. And. And that's what I would hope for all of us out here. I would hope that you weren't. Aren't just striving. You got to look underneath the lid and see where you're broken. We do a whole Reconstruction roadmap at Reconstruct U, where we dive into, like, 11 milestone moments in our lives. We see what those moments were, good or bad. We lift up the hood. We process how those things affected us. We journey together down a roadmap where we put pieces together and look at our brokenness in order to see, like, okay, am I a control freak? Because, you know, I was raised with some sense of insecurity or lack of control or fear. Like, we get to the root of it. Because when you get under the fear, there's a fear there. You're not just afraid. You're not afraid of getting divorced. There's a fear under the divorce. Right? Everyone say, oh, I'm afraid of getting divorced. Of course, but why? What's under that? Is it being alone? Is it rejection? Is it the loss of somebody that you've joined with so closely? Like, there's something under that. And I think if we don't start wrestling with what's under the fear, the fear under the fear, we can't find healing. And so, man, I want to get into. I want to win this Grammy Award. Why? Why are you so passionate about winning this award? Because I want to be accepted. Why do you want to be accepted? Because I'm afraid of rejection. Why are you afraid of rejection? Because my dad rejected me. My dad rejected me. Okay? We got to heal that. And I'm not saying I'm not a licensed therapist. I can't. But what I can do is point you to scriptures, books, truth, to help and have a community that we can walk through this together with. So I love y'. All. I hope that there was something you could pull out of this, but, you know, fame doesn't fix it. Catch y' all next time.