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

Episode Transcription

• Bonus Episode 3 Transcription

  Intro: 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 Mick 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 a step toward the extraordinary.
  
  So let's unleash your potential. Now, here's Mick.
  
  Mick Hunt: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another exciting episode of Mick Unplugged where we shine a light on stories that inspire us to dream bigger and push harder. And today, I am thrilled to welcome a goat in life, someone whose life is and their story resonates with perseverance, with leadership, and the pursuit of excellence. He still has a baby face. I'm not gonna ask him his personal age, but we're here with the legend today. Everyone join me in applause as we welcome my man, mister Ray Leonard junior.
  
  Ray, welcome to Mick Unplugged, my brother. How are you?
  
  Ray Lenard Jr: Mick, it's it's an honor to be on here with you, brother. I know we've been trying to organize this thing for a minute, but I'm glad we actually finally got it rolling.
  
  Mick Hunt: You're you're a busy man, and I respect that. I totally respect that. So speaking of busy man, like, let's just get into it. Like, what is going on in the world of Ray Leonard Junior right now?
  
  Ray Lenard Jr: It's life like all of us. I'm trying to leave my mark, leave my legacy on this world, do some amazing things, not only change the direction of my family and the legacy of my family, but also help, others to be better where they are in life. And one of the biggest things that I've been involved in is a venture studio called Nobody Studios that is trying to build a 100 successful companies or impactful companies over the next 5 years. And I'm leading the charge of one of those companies, which is called ovations.com, ovations with a c, dot com, to lead that company into the next phase of how we actually actually function, how we hire people, how we are educated and grow our businesses in space of how we, you know, 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 drop shipping. No. Like, we have real people that act to do real business. They actually put you in a place that can give you the information to get you to right where you need to be. So that's been my biggest charge.
  
  Well, I'm sure we'll get into my past and history and everything else that I'm doing, but, I love you, brother. I love the, the platform that you built and what you're doing. So I appreciate being on your platform right now.
  
  Mick Hunt: I appreciate you more than you know, man. And 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 5, 6, 7 times a week about, man. Like, be careful what you're seeing on these social platforms because everybody's not telling you the real story of how they got there. It's real easy once you appear to be at the top, and I say appear, not real. When you appear to be at the top, you can say a lot of things that sound cool and sound like, yep, you snap your fingers and it happens.
  
  The real world doesn't work that way. And so many people are afraid to do what you just said is the work. And the work never stops. The grind never quits. Again, that's one of the things that I love, and I'm passionate about you and and the things that you do because you're always working, you're always grinding.
  
  Ray Lenard Jr: I love it, and it's an honest place to come from. And I never wanna give someone the impression of where someone gets to is easy and that there is an easy path to get to where you need to be because there is not anybody can hit hit hit a lotto ticket and win for a day, win for a few months. But the reality of this, if you wanna be successful and have a life that's actually meaningful, then you actually have to put the work into it. No matter where you come from, what your circumstances were when you started out, if you were on top of the world or if you were on the bottom of the world when you started out, we all have a path and the journey that happened 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 a issue that you will struggle with for the rest of your life. And so if I made a $1,000,000,000 tomorrow, would that change my life? No. Because there's certain things in my life that I put a premium value on that doesn't have a monetary value on it. So when we talk about that type of thing, like, most people put a monetary value on every single thing they do in their life.
  
  But there's so many things that are valuable. So I am more wealthy than some of my people who are friends or who are billionaires or millionaires that have all the successful things that they think are successful, but they don't have the same kind of value in their lives. So I'm sorry. I I I go on tangent just like that because this is important to me.
  
  Mick Hunt: 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 wanna give people real life, real world things.
  
  Right? Like, life is what you make out of it, but you gotta be willing to go get it, and you gotta be willing to go get it every day. Right? And you have to be willing to go get it, Not letting someone go do it for you. And a lot of us, unfortunately, are stuck in that mindset of, let me just tag alone.
  
  Doesn't work that way.
  
  Ray Lenard Jr: Yeah. I mean, it's it's funny because I have friends, from, you know, all over different job spaces. And so I I say that in a space because there's been a lot that's come out in social media about me and my family and all these different things over the last few days. So I say that with a grain of salt because there are 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 a value. So I say that from from recent things that have have have come out.
  
  Mick Hunt: 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 Junior. So from the 7 Up commercial till now, man, like, tell me whatever you wanna tell me. What does the world need to know about Ray Junior and those things that that you endured as a child, those visions that you set for yourself to get to where you are today? Because, again, it wasn't easy. I don't care where you come from.
  
  You still have to make it in your own way in your life.
  
  Ray Lenard Jr: That's that's a good question, right, because my life is 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 it's the only life I knew. Right? So the thought process for me of having my life is different than what, you know, some of my friends have talked about it when I went to college and I went on my own, and I was always very independent. My parents were teenagers. My mother was 15.
  
  My father was 16 when I was born. Homa Park, Maryland, we had nothing. My dad ends up winning the 76 Olympics and a gold medal. My mom was taken care of when she was working 2 jobs. She's working at and working at the gas station and taking care of my father so he can support his dream.
  
  But then, you know, 4 or 5 years later, he becomes the breadwinner, so things change up. But most people don't know that whole saga of 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 to say, look. We need to have a a black family that is viable for corporate America. And that was my first experience into the media space because the 7 Up commercial, I didn't wanna do it.
  
  They had to bribe me and they said I said, man, they'll they'll give me a Honda 3 wheeler. That's what made me actually 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 7 year old kid for 45 years. But it's it's cool. What whatever it is, I'd rather them remember me than than not know me.
  
  Right? So which is cool to 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 you know, I've got to grow with Ty Bridges and Gary Coleman. And so I was in the same mix with all those kids who were superstars. I was on Jet Magazine.
  
  I was on Essence Magazine. I was, you know, the kid that people wanted to be like. But then when the reality sets in and the shadow comes in, it's like, alright. We're moved on to the next person, or you are not as important as I thought you were at this point in time in your life. You have to have your own space that says that I'm valuable and I have this own identity.
  
  But for me for me, unlike, you know, even my siblings, I have, a brother and and a half brother and half sister. They still struggle with figuring out their identity. For me, it was always me having the identity outside of my father. So
  
  Mick Hunt: Mhmm.
  
  Ray Lenard Jr: I was a 2 sport athlete in college. I was the 1st person in my family ever to go to college. I was a d one athlete. I was on the USA team for track and field. I had some really good valuable things that I did in my life that most people be like, oh, this is really great.
  
  But for me, it was like, well, I didn't wanna win the gold medal. Didn't win 6 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 Junior.
  
  So first and foremost, we had to figure out if we could sing. If 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 1st actual business owner in my family and actually sell a profitable business was me being a person that had a world championship and made out of the 6. 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 I'm like Michael Jordan and LeBron. Right?
  
  So Right. You still chasing those championship 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 I went on a tangent, but I'm a speaker. So you open the mic up, I'm a keep talking.
  
  Mick Hunt: That's why you're here. And, you know, I've I've listened to several of your speeches. And, again, that's why I adore the things that you do. And I'm not gonna say the things you overcome because every day people are overcoming something, right? Like it's you, you don't overcome life one time.
  
  And I think that's what's important for people to understand. For you, and, 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 or to conquer that moment? Do you have anything that comes to mind on that?
  
  Ray Lenard Jr: I'm a give you, like, a game changing moment that I don't think I've ever seen on any show
  
  Mick Hunt: Mhmm.
  
  Ray Lenard Jr: Any place before. Because my father, after 1982, when he had a detached retina, he became an alcoholic, and he and I didn't hit it off well at all. We had this confrontational battle of meet the minds because we're both alpha males to have this whole conversation. And he was like, like, you can never, you know, reach the levels that I reached. And I was like, I don't wanna reach the levels that you reach because your levels are false, fictitious levels that you've reached, and you're not happy that you've been to this space.
  
  I was like, I'm a be a better father than you. I'm a be a better person than you. I'm a be a better leader than you. And, you know, you you'll see it as you go forward. And that was like a transformational moment.
  
  That was the first time I confronted my father who I was always scared of because, like, this welch weight champion of the world. So what am I gonna do with a 12 year old kid? But, you know, I was rambunctious, and I would stand my ground. And that was the first time I stood my ground from a vocal because I have my own mind. I have my own space.
  
  It it became a thing that now fast forward 30 years later, that it's a respect thing between he and I.
  
  Mick Hunt: There you go.
  
  Ray Lenard Jr: Because I've I've never asked for anything from him. He's never given me anything. So just to quick give it up for the whole audience that I've never been given anything from my parents. You know, I've found my way. I give that to my brothers, my sisters, to my kids who are in a space that we have our own DNA.
  
  We have our own lives to live, and there's no one else that can match what we actually put out there. And your journey is your journey. Well, whether you have support from different areas, that's cool. But your journey has to be your journey and your path, and I won't let anybody else ever dignify or ever have influence over my path in life. And I think that's part of the reason why I have this peace in myself now that I didn't have for years because I struggle with mental health, struggle with, you know, how do I become someone different than what was ordained than what my father has has built because I can't ever get out of that shadow.
  
  But once I found my own voice, it it it changed the whole path of of my life, my kids' lives. I even think with with with my parents and my father's life because I'm the kind of the the middle person that that everybody goes through.
  
  Mick Hunt: Wow. Bro, I I wanna 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 gonna understand what what I say here. And this is something I haven't shared. You know, a lot of people know a little bit of my story, and my mom is my heart.
  
  My mom was my because. And, you know, there was a moment where she was going through financial, emotional, physical abuse with my father, and I asked her to leave. Like like, let me deal with it. You leave. And she said no.
  
  And so she was like, we're all gonna stick in here together. And so for me, being the oldest, I was never enough, if that makes sense. Right? Like, I can never yeah. I I can never be enough.
  
  I can never do enough. And, you know, you can make straight a's. You can be star athlete on the team, but it never was good enough. And so I didn't understand that until I had kids, and I was like, I can't do that. Right?
  
  Like, that's when I realized growing up in it, I didn't think anything was wrong, to be honest with you. Right? Like, I just thought that was a way of pushing and motivating me. But then I go back and I look, and I was like, I was just never enough. And that's the fuel that made me who I am.
  
  It's 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 need that therapy right here, ladies and gentlemen. I needed that.
  
  Ray Lenard Jr: I will give you this because a lot of people look at me and say, oh, here, you came to the space. You were blessed in this, but I was the hard hit kid. Nobody's gonna help me. And I went through a space where I've had my family in the space. I lost 2 houses to foreclosure because I was super hard headed about that I would just do what I would do, put my family in tough situations, and I've never really talked about this.
  
  But I think it's important to to give people precise information about where you are and where you can go in your lives. Early on, I I just just thought there, you know, everything was gonna work itself out, and I could not just leverage be a Sugar Ray living in the sun or I could I'm this guy all the time, and I was super hard headed. I wouldn't take advice from anybody. I wouldn't listen to people. I would not take any conversation from mental health because I was like, I'm a dog.
  
  I'm always the dog. So Right. You can't say shit to me that it's gonna be something that changes my life. You find out my grandmother used to tell me your hard hair make a soft ass. I don't know why you said that on here, but
  
  Mick Hunt: It's our podcast, brother.
  
  Ray Lenard Jr: And I had to learn it, man. And and it it was a continuous thing, and I always talk about in my presentations is that, like, there if you do the same over and over thing over and over again and get the same result, it's insanity. We are not monolithic people. We're not monolithic creatures. We we we need help.
  
  We need support from each other. We're gonna have our down days. We're gonna have the spaces where we suffer. Like, we'll all go 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, I they had me on the magazines, team beat all their stuff on their 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 4 kids that I'm trying to support and grow and put in spaces.
  
  My daughter was a educational scholar at the Pepperdine University. She graduated. She's a marketing expert at Walgreens, and she lives in Atlanta, Georgia. She's a dog. My my son's playing football at Savannah State.
  
  He's getting his education. So I've had 2 kids at least that have gone to college and have space that they're creating their own legacy. And I have 2 more who are 17 and 16, my baby girl and my my son, who are excellent athletes, but we're grooming to be at be exceptional with 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 Mhmm. We're we're never able to show our exceptionalism.
  
  Mick Hunt: I love that. Alright. I know you're busy, so I'm a 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?
  
  Ray Lenard Jr: I do this a lot of times in my presentations, and first thing people come out like, oh, you you ran a 100 meters, or you ran this, or you were shot putter because I'm fat now. But or did this and, like, you you big. Like, alright. No. I was a high hurdler.
  
  I ran the hurdles, the 110 meter hurdles. I ran the 403100 hurdles when I was in high school. Yeah. I was I was really pretty good, so you can probably still look up some of the records that I I still have.
  
  Mick Hunt: I knew the answer. I just wanted you to tell the audience because I knew that they
  
  Ray Lenard Jr: were gonna assume Sprinter. It's funny. I I we we ran on the Maryland USA team. We had a 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, you know, Marcus.
  
  Jermaine. Yeah. He's my guy. But, you know, we all ran for multiple weeks over in Russia and in Spain. It's, you know, amazing experience.
  
  I didn't lose ever, though, over there. So just to say that.
  
  Mick Hunt: Dote. Throwing it out there. Dote. Never lost. I like it.
  
  Ray Lenard Jr: Well, I I lost I lost once.
  
  Mick Hunt: No. Now the truth comes out.
  
  Ray Lenard Jr: My 11th great year, I lost once.
  
  Mick Hunt: Truth comes out. One loss. One loss. Victories from there. Yes.
  
  If if Ray Leonard Junior was gonna be performing at the Super Bowl, what 2 songs you're singing? Because I'm just giving you 2 songs at the Super Bowl.
  
  Ray Lenard Jr: Oh, boy. Man, I I gotta sing Stevie went to higher ground because that's my GOAT of all GOATs. Stevie went the higher ground. And then, probably Otis Redding sitting on the dock of the bay because that's the one song that I know the whole all the words to.
  
  Mick Hunt: Alright. So we're gonna have a special episode of nothing but regular thinking. Just
  
  Ray Lenard Jr: so everybody There there there we go. It's just 2 songs I know the worst to. And I I just told you both I told you both of them.
  
  Mick Hunt: There you go. Alright. Getting out of here. What are 3 things that you want the audience to to start doing today to have a better and prepared life? What's 3 things people can do today?
  
  Ray Lenard Jr: So the first one is what my grandma grandfather told me and which is the moral of my whole life is when you know better, do better. So it's seek to be educated. Once you're educated about the situation, you take it and use it to your advantage. That was literally, my 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 is every single day I try to be at at least 1% better, be better than I was day before.
  
  So that's one thing. The second one is live it living your honesty and your truth. I mean, that's the hardest thing for us to do because we all wanna be accepted. We all wanna be in a space where we're not judged. But the reality of it is our truth is our truth.
  
  And then the assuming that we figured it 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 looking for someone else. Okay. And the third one, this is a this is a tough one. And, see, Mick didn't give me, like, these questions beforehand, so I couldn't have it already prepared. So this this is off the top of the dome.
  
  Mick Hunt: I like it raw and emotional, brother.
  
  Ray Lenard Jr: The third lad last thing is 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 the Eddie Murphy's movies that he was I think he was playing a pastor or something like that, and he was talking about in our best case scenario with all of us, we have 75 years to live.
  
  We have 75 summers, 75 autumn, 75 winters, 75 springs. And then when you look at it at that point, it starts to question your morality and how long you actually have. We always can put things off and procrastinate to the next day, but we're not promised tomorrow. I say this because, you know, my best friend in the world last year passed away. He passed away 2 weeks after he told me he was coming out to see me to help me deal with some issues that I was doing.
  
  And I had no idea that he was dealing with issues that he was dealing with. And before he actually had a chance to fly out and be out here with me in California, He got rushed to the hospital. They said that he was gonna be okay. They had these fluids and things like that. And then 2 weeks later, when they thought he was going back home, he relapsed and and ended up passing away.
  
  And I I I take that, and I keep saying this conversation over this last past year. It's like, you don't know when your number is gonna be called, but all of our numbers will be called. What are we doing in the meantime, and are we putting off what we can do today for tomorrow that will not actually happen? Appreciate your time. Appreciate the moments that you have.
  
  Appreciate the people that you have around you. Appreciate where you are in life for it to make a bigger difference in where you actually wanna go in life.
  
  Mick Hunt: 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 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 and really just shake your hand and 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.
  
  Ray Lenard Jr: Thanks, Mick. It's great to be on here, man. I love what you're doing. Keep keep it going. Sometimes we make a bigger difference outside of people that we don't even know.
  
  So keep it going, brother.
  
  Mick Hunt: I appreciate that. And everybody remember, your because is your superpower. Go unleash it.
  
  Intro: Thanks for listening to Mick Unplugged. We hope this episode helps you take the next step toward the extraordinary and launches a revolution unplugged. Stay inspired, and stay unplugged.