Bonus Episode 3 | Ray Leonard Jr: Navigating Legacy and Leadership - Mick Unplugged
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Are you ready to change your habits, sculpt your destiny, and light up your path to greatness? Welcome to the epicenter of transformation. This is Mic Unplugged. We'll help you identify your because, so you can create a routine that's not just productive, but powerful.

You'll embrace the art of evolution, adapt strategies to stay ahead of the game, and take a step toward the extraordinary. So let's unleash your potential. Now, here's Mick.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another exciting episode of Mic Unplugged, where we shine a light on stories that inspire us to dream bigger and push harder. And today I am thrilled to welcome a goat in life. Someone whose life is in their story resonates with perseverance, with leadership in the pursuit of excellence.

He still has a baby face. I'm not going to ask him his personal age, but we're here with the legend today. Everyone join me in applause as we welcome my man, Mr. Ray Leonard Jr. Ray, welcome to Mick Unplugged, my brother. How are you? Mick, it's an honor to be on here with you, brother. I know we wouldn't

trying to organize this thing for a minute, but I'm glad we actually finally got it rolling. You're a busy man, and I respect that. I totally respect that. So speaking of busy, man, let's just get into it. What is going on in the world of Ray Leonard Jr. right now? It's life like all of us. I'm trying to leave my mark, leave my legacy on this world, do some amazing things to not only change the direction of my family and the legacy of my family, but also help others to be better at where they are in life.

And one of the biggest things that I've been involved in is a venture studio called Nobody Studios that is trying to build a hundred successful companies or impactful companies over the next five years. And I'm leading the charge of one of those companies, which is called Ovations.com, Ovations with a C, to lead that company into the next phase of how we actually function, how we hire people, how we are educated.

grow our businesses in space of how we use our minds. So we're not just learning from TikTok stars or we're not learning from Instagram stars, but we're learning from people who actually did the work. And so I hear you can make $10,000 a month just doing dropshipping. No, we have real people that actually do real business, that actually put you in a place that can give you the information to get you to right where you need to be.

So that's been my biggest charge. I'm sure we'll get into my past and history and everything else that I'm doing. But I love you, brother. I love the platform that you built and what you're doing. So I appreciate being on your platform right now.

I appreciate you more than you know, man. And before we get into your past and you have a great story and legacy, you hit on something that I probably talk to people five, six, seven times a week about that. Like, be careful what you're seeing on these social platforms, because everybody's not telling you the real story of how they got there. It's real easy once you appear to be at the top. And I say appear not real. When you appear to be at the top, you can say a lot of things that sound cool and sound like, yep, you snap your fingers and it happens. The real world doesn't work.

And so many people are afraid to do what you just said is the work and the work never stops. The grind never quits. Again, that's one of the things that I love and I'm passionate about you and the things that you do because you're always working. You're always grinding.

I love it. And it's an honest place to come from. And I never want to give someone the impression of where someone gets to is easy and that there is an easy path to get to where you need to be because there is not. Anybody can hit the hit a lotto ticket and win for a day, win for a few months. But the reality of this, if you want to be successful and have a life that is actually meaningful, then you actually have to put the work into it.

No matter where you come from and what your circumstances were when you started out, if you were on top of the world or if you were on the bottom of the world when you started out, we all have a path and a journey that happens in our lives. And if you're not cognizant of that, if you're not looking at what you have to actually put in to have a successful life, or if you don't define what is success in your life,

even bigger. That becomes a problem and an issue that you will struggle with for the rest of your life. And so if I made a billion dollars tomorrow, would that change my life? No, because there's certain things in my life that I put a premium value on that doesn't have a monetary value on it.

So when we talk about that type of thing, like most people put a monetary value on every single thing they do in their life. But there's so many things that are valuable. So I am more wealthy than some of my people who are friends or billionaires or millionaires that have

all the successful things that they think are successful, but they don't have the same kind of value in their lives. So I'm sorry I go on tangent just like that because it's important to me. Same. That's why I brought it up, man. That's why I brought it up. And that's the essence of this podcast, right? Like we want to give people real life, real world things, right? Like life is what you make out of it, but you got to be willing to go get it and you got to be willing to go get it every day, right? And you have to be willing to go get it.

it, not letting someone go do it for you. And a lot of us, unfortunately, are stuck in that mindset of let me just tag along. It doesn't work that way. Yeah. I mean, it's funny because I have friends from all over different job spaces. So I say that in a space because there's been a lot that's come out on social media about me and my family and all these different things over the last few days. So I say that with a grain of salt because there's certain values that people put on certain things in your life.

what you hold dear is everything that you can obtain from a socioeconomic standpoint, then it's not gonna be something that's gonna be long lasting. And it's not gonna be here in your heart that was something that actually gives you

So I say that from recent things that have come out. Good stuff. So let's talk family, man. You brought up the legacy that you're trying to provide and live on for your family. And remember the 7-Up commercial, right? That's when I first saw Ray Jr. So from the 7-Up commercial till now, man, like tell me whatever you want to tell me.

What does the world need to know about Ray Jr. and those things that you endured as a child, those visions that you set for yourself to get to where you are today? Because again, it wasn't easy. I don't care where you come from. You still have to make it in your own way in your life. That's a good question, right? Because my life is very skewed because my life is way different than the average person, which I actually thought my life was the same as everybody else because

That's the only life I knew, right? So the thought process for me of having my life is different than what some of my friends have talked about it. When I went to college and I went

on my own and i was always very independent my parents were teenagers my mother was 15 my father was 16 when i was born home park maryland we had nothing my dad ends up winning the 76 olympics and a gold medal my mom was taken care of and she was working two jobs she's working at arthur treacherous and working at the gas station and taking care of my father so he can support his dream

But then, four or five years later, he becomes the breadwinner. So things change up. But most people don't know that whole saga of what happened. For me, being in that space as a young kid and being kind of like a pawn in the whole mix of the marketing strategy, just say, "Look, we need to have a Black family that is viable for corporate America."

That was my first experience into the media space because the 7-Up commercial, I didn't want to do it. They had to bribe me. I said, they'll give me a Honda three-wheeler. That's what made me do the commercial. I know that that would be the bane of my existence to turn me into somebody that they thought I was a seven-year-old kid for 45 years.

But it's cool, whatever it is, I'd rather them remember me than not know me. Which is cool to actually look back on it and just show my kids and have this conversation with my kids. But the reality of it is, if you don't have your own identity, your own space, I got to grow up with Ty Bridges and Gary Coleman. I was in the same mix with all those kids who were superstars. I was on Jet Magazine. I was on Essence Magazine. I was the kid that people wanted to be like.

But then when the reality sets in and the shadow comes in, it's like, all right, we're moved on to the next person. Or you are not as important as I thought you were at this point in time in your life. You have to have your own space that says that I'm valuable and I have this own identity. But for me, for me, I'm like,

Even my siblings, I have a half-brother and half-sister. They still struggle with figuring out their identity. For me, it was always me having the identity outside of my father. So I was a two-sport athlete in college. I was the first person in my family ever to go to college. I was a D1 athlete. I was on the USA team for track and field. I had some really good, valuable things that I did in my life that most people would be like, oh, this is really great.

But for me, it was like, well, I didn't win an Olympic gold medal, didn't win six world championships. So am I valuable enough to say that I made a difference in my life? So it took me over 30 years to figure out my identity outside of my father. My grandmother named this Ray Charles Leonard Jr. So first and foremost, we had to figure out if we could sing. My father couldn't sing. I could sing pretty decent.

I do okay. But if you're constantly trying to level up and beat the person that birthed you into this world, then you have a hard way to move forward. But the reality of it is, is you have your own space that you can really do something great. So

Me being the first person in my family to ever graduate from college was my gold medal. Me being the first actual business owner in my family and actually sell a profitable business was me being a person that had a world championship. It may not have been six. I just turned 50 in November. So I still have time to win a few more championships. But it's like, I feel like I'm like Michael Jordan and LeBron.

So you still chase those championships to say that you're viable. But the reality of it is, is you have your own path and you've done something that everybody should respect in a different space. So I'm sorry if I went on a tangent, but-

I'm a speaker. So you open the mic up, I'm going to keep talking. That's why you're here. And, you know, I've listened to several of your speeches. And again, that's why I adore the things that you do. And I'm not going to say the things you overcome because every day people are overcoming something, right? Like it's you don't overcome life one time.

And I think that's what's important for people to understand for you. And you were hitting on it a little bit, pressures and the expectation that comes with the name. Was there a moment where maybe you felt it's overwhelming and then you had to dig deep to overcome that feeling or to conquer that moment?

Do you have anything that comes to mind on that? I'm going to give you like a game changing moment that I don't think I've ever said on any show, any place before. My father, after 1982, and he had a detached retina, he became an alcoholic and he and I didn't hit it off well at all. We had this confrontational battle of meet the minds because we're both alpha males to have this whole conversation. And

And he was like, you can never reach the levels that I reached. And I was like, I don't want to reach the levels that you reach because your levels are false, fictitious levels that you've reached. And you're not happy that you've been to space. I was like, I'm going to be a better father than you. I'm going to be a better person than you. I'm going to be a better leader than you. And you'll see it as you go forward. And that was like a transformational moment.

That was the first time I confronted my father, who I was always scared of because this is a welterweight champion in the world. So what am I going to do as a 12-year-old kid? But I was rambunctious and I would stand my ground.

And that was the first time I stood my ground from a vocal standpoint to say that I don't need you. I respect you. I love what you've accomplished, but I don't need you because I'll be successful in my own right because I have my own mind. I have my own space. It became a thing that now fast forward 30 years later, that it's a respect thing between he and I. There you go. Because I've never asked for anything from him. He's never given me anything.

So just to clear it up for the whole audience that I've never been given anything from my parents. You know, I found my way. I give that to my brothers, my sisters, to my kids who are in a space that we have our own DNA. We have our own lives to live and there's no one else that can match what we actually put out there. And your journey is your journey. Well, whether you have support from different areas,

That's cool. But your journey has to be your journey and your path. And I won't let anybody else ever dignify or have influence over my path in life. And I think that's part of the reason why I have this peace in myself now that I didn't have for years because I struggle with mental health, struggle with, you know,

How do I become someone different than what was ordained, than what my father has built? Because I can't ever get out of that shadow. But once I found my own voice, it changed the whole path of my life, my kids' lives. I even think with my parents and my father's life, because I'm kind of the middle person that everybody goes through.

Wow, bro. I want to tell you, I love you so much because you're invoking something in me because we have such a similar story in a little bit. I mean, obviously my dad, not, not famous by any stretch of imagination, but I think you of all people are going to understand what I say here. And this is something I haven't shared. You know, a lot of people know,

a little bit of my story. My mom is my heart. My mom was my because. And, you know, there was a moment where she was going through financial, emotional, physical abuse with my father. And I asked her to leave, like, let me deal with it. You leave. And she said no. And so she was like, we're all going to stick in here together. And so for me, being the oldest, I was never enough, if that makes sense. Right. Like I can never be

I could never be enough. I could never do enough. And, you know, you can make straight A's. You can be star athlete on the team, but it never was good enough. And so I didn't understand that.

that until I had kids. And I was like, I can't do that. Right. Like that's when I realized growing up in it, I didn't think anything was wrong to be honest with you. Right. Like I just thought that was a way of pushing and motivating me. But then I go back and I look and I was like, I was just never enough. And that's the fuel that made me who I am is that fuel of wanting to provide for my mom, my sister, my brother, but also I don't have to be someone's enough. That's what drove me. And that, and that's what I, I know you understand what I'm saying when I

say that we just had therapy right here ladies and gentlemen i needed that i will give you this because a lot of people look at me and say here you came through the space you were blessed in this but i was the hard-headed kid nobody's going to help me and i went through a space where i had my family in the space i lost two houses to foreclosure because i was super hard-headed up

that I would just do what I would do. Put my family in tough situations. I've never really talked about this, but I think it's important to give people precise information about where you are and where you can go in your lives. Early on, I just stored there

You know, everything was going to work itself out. I could not just leverage, be a sugar, a little son. I'm this guy all the time. And I was super hardheaded. I wouldn't take advice from anybody. I wouldn't listen to people. I would not take any conversation from mental health because I was like, I'm a dog. I'm always the dog. So you can't say to me that it's going to be something that changes my life.

You find out, my grandmother used to tell me, "Your hard head makes a soft ass." I don't know if I can say that on air, but- It's our podcast, brother. And I had to learn it, man. And it was a continuous thing. And I always talk about in my presentations is that if you do the same over and over thing over and over again and get the same result, it's insanity. We are not monolithic people. We're not monolithic creatures. We need help. We need support from each other.

We're going to have our down days, but I have the spaces where we suffer. We're all going to fall down. We fall down when we get up. Right.

And so if I'm a person that was put on a pedestal that people look at, like they had me on the magazines, team beat all that stuff on their wall. And to know that I'm not flawless, that I lose, I've lost, I've lost a lot. Now I have four kids that I'm trying to support and grow and put in spaces. My daughter was an educational scholarship to Pepperdine University.

She graduated. She's a marketing expert at Walgreens and she lives in Atlanta, Georgia. She's a dog. My son's playing football at Savannah State. He's getting his education. So I've had two kids at least that have gone to college and have space that they're creating their own legacy.

And I have two more who are 17 and 16, my baby girl and my son, who are excellent athletes, but we're grooming to be exceptional in something else other than just athletics. It's like if athletics takes you there, that's fine. But the reality of it is, is what is your contribution back to the world? And what do you see your personal value in yourself being? And that's been the biggest thing, I think, especially from our Black and Brown community, that

It's always a space of where we're looking to be included. We're looking to be accepted, but we're never able to show our exceptionalism. I love that. All right. I know you're busy. So I'm going to do some rapid fire and I'll get you out of here. So.

college track and field what was your event or what were your events i do this a lot of times in my presentations and first thing people come out like oh you ran 100 meters or you ran this or you were a shot putter because i'm fat now but did this and like you big like all right no i was a high hurdler i ran the hurdles 110 meter hurdles i ran the

400 and 300 hurdles when I was in high school. Yeah, I was really pretty good. You can probably still look up some of the records that I still have. I knew the answer. I just wanted you to tell the audience because I knew that they were going to assume Sprinter. It's funny. We ran on the Maryland USA team. We had a transitional team to do Goodwill in Russia in 1990, I think, or maybe 1991. But it was me, Jonathan Ogden, Jermaine Lewis, who both played for the Ravens.

- And Marcus, yeah, that's my guy. But we all ran for multiple weeks over in Russia and Spain. It was an amazing experience.

I didn't lose ever, though, over there. So just to say that. Dope. Throwing it out there. Dope. Never lost. I like it. Well, I lost once. Oh, now the truth comes out. My 11th grade year, I lost once. Truth comes out. One loss. All victories from there. Yes. If Ray Leonard Jr. was going to be performing at the Super Bowl, what two songs are you singing? Because I'm just giving you two songs at the Super Bowl.

Man. I got to sing Stevie Wonder, Higher Ground, because that's my goat of all goats. Stevie Wonder, Higher Ground. And then probably Otis Redding, Sitting on the Dock of the Bay, because that's one song I know all the words to. Alright.

All right. So we're going to have a special episode of Nothing But Ray Linden. There we go. It's two songs. I know the words to that. I told you both. I told you both of them. There you go. All right. Getting out of here. What are three things that you want the audience to start doing today to have a better and prepared life? What's three things people can do today?

So the first one is what my grandma, grandfather told me, and which is the moral of my whole life is we need to know better, do better. So it's seek to be educated. Once you're educated about the situation, you take it and use it to your advantage. That was...

literally a Maya Angelou quote, but it stuck for me and my grandfather, maybe veteran, rest in peace, Cicero. So that is like the main thing that guides me in my life. It's every single day I try to be at least 1% better, be better than I was the day before. So that's one thing. The second one is live it, live in your honesty and your truth. And that's the hardest thing for us to do because

We all want to be accepted. We all want to be in a space where we're not judged. But the reality of it is our truth is our truth. And assuming that we figure that out and we learn that and we understand it, then we're able to live our lives in a space that is a lot more precious to us than reality.

Lived it for someone else. Okay. And the third one, this is a tough one. And see, Mick didn't give me like these questions beforehand, so I couldn't have it already prepared. So this is off the top of the dome. I like it raw and emotional, brother. The third and last thing is to not be afraid. Don't live your life in fear of anything. It's to go out, be bold, be aggressive.

Here's the weird thing. I was watching one of Eddie Murphy's movies that he was playing a pastor or something like that. He was talking about in our best case scenario with all of us, we have 75 years to live. We have 75 summers, 75 autumns, 75 winters, 75 springs.

When you look at it at that point, it starts to question your morality and how long you actually have. We always can put things off and procrastinate to the next day, but we're not promised tomorrow. I say this because my best friend in the world last year passed away. He passed away two weeks after he told me he was coming out to see me to help me deal with some issues that I was dealing with.

And I had no idea that he was dealing with issues that he was dealing with. And before he actually had a chance to fly out and be out here with me in California, he got rushed to the hospital. They said that he was going to be okay. They had fluids and things like that. And then two weeks later, when they thought he was going back home, he relapsed and ended up passing away. And I take that and I keep saying this conversation over this last past year. It's like, you don't know when your number's going to be called.

but all of our numbers will be called. What are we doing in the meantime? And are we putting off what we can do today for tomorrow that will not actually happen? Appreciate your time. Appreciate the moments that you have. Appreciate the people that you have around you. Appreciate where you are in life for it to make a bigger difference than where you actually want to go in life. Ladies and gentlemen, a lot of wisdom, a lot of knowledge in everything that Ray just said.

I think everybody should go back and restart this podcast and go back and pay attention to all the nuggets that he just dropped, because I have at least a page and a half of quotes that I just wrote down. I don't even think Ray realizes he is now a quoteologist. I have several quotes and I'll make sure you get some of these, but these are amazing. Ray, brother, I appreciate you more than you know. Can't wait to meet you face to face and in person and really just shake your hand, give you a hug, man, because you've been an inspiration for so many people and I want you to keep doing that.

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

I appreciate that. And everybody remember your because is your superpower. Don't unleash it. Thanks for listening to Mick Unplugged. We hope this episode helps you take the next step toward the extraordinary and launches a revolution in your life. Don't forget to rate and review the podcast and be sure to check us out on YouTube at Mick Unplugged. Remember, stay empowered, stay inspired and stay unplugged.