Recovering After Divorce: John Wayne S. III Opens Up About Creativity, Co-Parenting & Healing 💡|| DPTSP #098 || David M. Webb

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Don't Pick the Sky podcast. Today, we're thrilled to have John Wayne III, a Chicago-born producer, director, and storyteller with over 20 years of experience crafting powerful narratives. From his early days in music videos to founding London Town Pictures, he is a champion of diverse voices and fresh perspectives. As a proud father and lifelong fan of sci-fi and 80s pop culture, I was more Space 1999, by the way.

[00:00:31] He brings heart and humor to his work. Join us as we explore his journey through filmmaking, mentorship, relationships, and the challenges of dating after divorce. My specialty, all while inspiring men to embrace growth.

[00:00:58] Welcome to the Don't Pick the Sky podcast with the premise of connecting men over 40 with the tools and community to thrive in their divorce recovery either before, during, or after a divorce. Welcome, John. And tell us a little bit about yourself. Thank you. I'm always humble when people allow me on a platform, because if you said yes to me, you probably said no to somebody else. So I'm always humbled by that.

[00:01:22] I am a television and film producer. I've been producing for almost 30 years. I started off in the music industry. I was a publicist for Gravity-nominated producer Steve Socurly, eventually becoming his director of international A&R, running his offices in the UK and Japan, and then eventually going back into doing music videos and eventually to television and to film.

[00:01:45] So my journey has been, in a lot of cases, I just happened to be at the right moment. I was at the right place at the right time. I've taken opportunities and a lot of things in my life I really feel like if it's for you, it's for you. So I think a lot of things are just kind of like I was just in the right place at the right time. So as a lifelong sci-fi fan and storyteller, do you see parallels between the heroes in these stories and the challenges that we face in real life, like divorce or starting over?

[00:02:14] Yeah, obviously. Those stories, although they might be in space, on ships and foreign lands, relationships and how humans relate to each other goes across the galaxy. There's not really that much difference. Having a relationship with an alien woman is pretty much the same as having one on Earth. You know that Captain Kirk was the biggest hole anyway. And he had the same thing. If he did something with someone, they got jealous, they wanted to blow the ship up. So, you know, there's not a lot of difference.

[00:02:42] There's more aliens than anybody, man. Oh. Divorce is often seen as a major life reset. How did going through a divorce impact you personally and professionally? I know for me, I'm a creator who's creative. And so I need to have my mind in a place to where I can't have a lot of stuff in my head that's going to keep me from being creative.

[00:03:05] And I know for me, going to divorce stifled that. I had done a couple of movies before I got divorced, but the one that's like well-known is called Red All Over. And I had just finished it. Once I finished it, we went through a divorce. That movie sat on my hard drive for two years. Wow. I just could not, I couldn't emotionally get myself together to deliver it to a distributor. I had a couple of offers, people were asking me about it, and I just couldn't do it.

[00:03:35] And when I did finally get to a point where I said, okay, I'm going to get signed with somebody. I signed with the distributor, but it took me a year to deliver the film. I had to sign another agreement after I delivered everything. And it's been a whole year, but I just couldn't get myself to do it. I couldn't, I wasn't in a place creatively to be able to do it. So once I was able to get past that hump and get the movie to them and deliver it, everything was okay. But I had to be at that space to do that. So did you associate the divorce with the movie, kind of?

[00:04:06] In a way that, the movie's about gun violence. So from the creative expert, not. But I did associate the fact of me not being able to. When you sit on these type creative journeys and you decide that you want to do these things, you really have to do it with a team and your partner. And at the time, that was my wife. We agreed to do this. We had a plan of what we're going to do. And I had all this kind of laid out of how we were going to move our life forward.

[00:04:30] Once that changed, because when you get to a certain age, you have in your mind that certain things are boxes are checked off. You get the family, you have the kids, you buy the house, car and everything. Check these boxes off. When you go through a divorce, it's kind of like somebody takes the check away. And now you have this box all the way up here when you're trying to go down this list. And now you got to go back up here and figure out what to do about this box.

[00:04:57] So not being able to do, get the movie distributed. It was like me hadn't, I couldn't accept the fact that I was going through a divorce. I couldn't accept the fact that my life was about to change in ways that I had no idea was going to change. And so that was a lot for me to deal with because I couldn't really make any money being creative because my whole life and child support and going through custody battles and everything, it was all baked into my life.

[00:05:23] Who I was was me being married. I was John, who was a filmmaker, who also was a husband. And so that was part of who I was. And now that wasn't part of who I was. Now I have to redefine myself. Wow. What advice would you give to men over 40 who are struggling to rediscover themselves after divorce? You were talking about you lost, you kind of lost your identity. How would a man get that back?

[00:05:50] A lot of times it's really about you sitting down. What is it that you want to do? I remember when I was, we hadn't got divorced and we were just separated. We was going through the process and I picked up my daughter for a weekend or something. And she'd be talking, trying to figure out what we were going to do. And she asked me, daddy, what's your favorite food? And I sat there and looked at her for a second. I said, you know what? I really don't know because I spent so much time in my marriage making sure everybody else had what they want.

[00:06:18] I really didn't know a lot of stuff about what is it that I honestly like to do. What I did like to do because I spent so much time in my marriage and my wife and my kids and my stepkids are trying to get the things they need to do that. I really didn't know a lot about me. And so I was like, that's a good question. We start to explore what was it that I really wanted to do? And so once you figure that out above anything else, once you figure out who you are and what it is that you want to do, then you can move forward.

[00:06:45] But if you still associate yourself with this other person that's no longer in your life and you have to accept that, it makes it hard for you to move past that. So I think the first thing is really just figuring out this is who I am in spite of what I've gone through. Because if you go through a divorce, it doesn't mean you bad, that person bad. It's just life. Sometimes things just don't work.

[00:07:07] And what I had to do for myself when it came to my ex-wife, I had to get to a point and say that whatever it is that you need to move forward and get up every day, I just don't possess it. I don't have those skills. So you probably need to find somebody who either yourself or somebody who has those skills. I just don't have those. That's a different way to put it. Yeah. And so once I realized that and accepted that, I was able to move forward because everybody's going to blame each other. And as much as I want to blame my ex-wife about all the things I have in a relationship, we were married together.

[00:07:37] And in spite of what she may have said, I said to other people, me and her know what really happened in our marriage. Only us. And you can lie to other people all you want to, but you can't lie to yourself. Yeah. You're talking about the one thing that men have a hard time with is, like you said, taking care of themselves because they will take everybody else. And I contribute that to when the plane's going down, you got to put your O2 mask on first. You can't help anybody else. And Jim, guys are really bad at that.

[00:08:07] So how can they switch that up a little bit? When I was married, I was a snorer. I snored a lot. My wife would complain about me snoring all the time. And she had a lot of other stuff that was wrong with her. So we always focused on getting her stuff. When I got separated and divorced, the snoring was bothering me. I couldn't realize why I was just so tired all the time of going to sleep and everything. So I went to a doctor and the doctor referred me over to do get a sleep study. Manuel, I was married. We were together for 10, 12 years. And I've been snoring all the time.

[00:08:36] It wasn't until we actually separated and I went to the doctor and talked to him about it, I realized I had sleep apnea. Never came up. It was never a factor. Nobody ever, there was nobody ever in some cases advocating for me to do that. And so once I realized that and I started using the CPAP and everything, I started to realize other things in my life that I need to advocate for myself. There are other things that I probably am not taking care of because there were other.

[00:09:05] So at that point, I had no excuse. I had no excuse because that was this, even though I still have my child, but I didn't have this other person that I had to deal with every day. I could now spend time figuring out what my issues were and the things that are important to me. So if I hadn't, if I hadn't went through a divorce, I wouldn't even know that I had sleep apnea. Yeah. Mine's a little bit simpler. My ex did not like me eating Italian food because she said it came through my pores and I stunk.

[00:09:33] So I never ate Italian food. But when I got divorced, I had Italian food every day. And my wife now says I don't stink. So it's all good. Let's talk about co-parenting. How hard was co-parenting? And what are some of the things that you learned to make it easier? Because some guys out there, I had a co-parenting shit show. It was horrible. But we got through it because I realized that I loved my kids more than I hated my ex. That is very important.

[00:10:03] You have to love your kids more than you hate your ex. My father has this saying that when I was younger, I didn't understand what it meant. He said, know who you're working with. And I had to come to a realization with my ex that I needed to do things to make sure my child's life moved forward in spite of what she may feel one way or the other. Co-parenting has never been that easy with us. And to this day, it's really not that great. But my wife was, my ex-wife was a flight attendant.

[00:10:33] So she really wasn't there that much. So most of the things of parenting, the child going to the parent-teacher conference, giving them a bath and all the homework. I did that stuff. So when it came time for us to separate, it was just me continuing what I was doing. If she wanted to participate, that was her choice. I wasn't going to make her. I wasn't going to force her to go to the soccer games. I wasn't going to force her to come to the parent-teacher conferences. If she wanted to participate, fine. Because ultimately, my goal was to ensure that my child had the things that they needed to do.

[00:11:02] If that meant I need to work a little harder, that meant I need to focus a little bit harder, ask a little more questions. And that's what I was willing to do. I wanted her to participate because it's important that kids have a mother and a father. There's some things, I'm a man, there's some things I can't give my daughter. I just, I don't have those skills. If she wants to participate, that'd be great. If not, what can I really do? So I understood who she was. I knew who she was. And so I know there's certain things she just was not going to do.

[00:11:29] And so I just had to move forward in spite of all that. What advice do you have for divorced dads to rebuild or rekindle or repair and maintain a strong bond with their kids after divorce? The thing about it is that the kids, ultimately, if the parents don't work, that don't mean that there's nothing that the kids don't. Depending on how the kids understand why their parents are separating, that has a lot to do with it. A lot of times, parents try to keep their kids away from it.

[00:11:57] I'm an advocate for that to a degree. But I think in life, sometimes people keep certain things from their kids and not that understand the whole aspect of life. I think about myself. My mother had me when she was 16 years old. My father was always there. And so my parents are still married to this day. I never really saw them have conflict. I never really saw them have arguments or disagreements or anything like that. Sometimes it was, I don't like this like that.

[00:12:25] But it was nothing, anything tangible I can stick to. So when I got married, I guess I was trying to have the same relationship my parents were. But I'm dealing with a whole different person. So my relationship to my parents and then my relationship to my child was different. And trying to get my child to understand that just because we're not together doesn't mean we don't love you. But that's a child. They only can understand so much. A lot of times what I did initially was that I would try not to say bad stuff about her mother.

[00:12:55] I would try to do that as much. Because eventually in life, she'd get to a point she could have her own understanding what happens. Yeah. She could figure that out on herself. Always figure it out. Oh yeah, they figure it out. I don't have to say nothing. You can figure out your own self. And once they figure that out, but up until that, you have to deal with that. You have to deal with trying to explain certain things in a certain way to their understanding to where they could do that. So the best thing you really can do is to keep loving your child. Spend as much time as you possibly can. Show up for them.

[00:13:25] Yep. That's what happens a lot of times. People get divorced and they don't show up for their kids. Because they're so concerned with, I don't want to be in company with this other person. I don't want to talk to this person. I don't want to see the other person. But it's not about you. It's about this child. And the child doesn't know that. You think about a person who comes born into this world. There are two people in their life that they feel like they can trust. It's their mother and their father. And if they get to a point where they don't know who to trust, what kind of place to be? That's a scary place to be. You don't know what you're about.

[00:13:55] You may not trust the people outside of that, but your mother and your father, you don't know who you can trust. Be the bigger person for that child. For the child. Be that for that person. Show up for that person. Because at the end of the day, they will remember that. Kids remember a lot of stuff. But they remember the person who showed up for them. Yeah, they do. What about the guy that stays in the marriage for the kids? I'm a definitely not believer in that.

[00:14:21] Because I think it shows, it tells the kid that being in a dysfunctional relationship is okay. What about that? I'm going to say this. I never, if my wife hadn't decided she wanted to leave the house, I'd probably be still married to this thing. Honestly. Interesting. Because I was committed to the relationship. But in hindsight, as I've gone through the divorce and I've gone through that, I realized that kids need to see stable, loving relationships.

[00:14:52] And whatever that means, we don't have to be married to have a stable, loving relationship because our focus is to make sure our child keeps in love. When people stay in a relationship like that, kids can see that. They can see that this person doesn't really care about them. They can see that this, you just don't get alone and go alone and get alone. And as time as they go older, they hear stuff and they see stuff. It affects their relationships with other people, their own personal relationships. They might even say, oh, I never want to get married because I see what my parents would do because that's what my idea of marriage is.

[00:15:22] Or I don't see how I ever love anybody like that because everything is conditional. So you, if it gets to the point where you feel like you cannot be cordial to each other and this is just a function, everybody needs to be loved. Individually, together, separate. Y'all need to feel loved in some kind of way. It is better for you to just separate, get divorced or whatever it may be. So your child can see what a loving relationship is or how you love yourself when you're not with somebody else. Correct.

[00:15:51] Yeah. Let's get to the fun part, man. Dating after divorce. So my take on that is the first one out of the gate for me was just like my ex. Man, you just go right to familiar and it's almost like mouth to a flame. Yeah. I know for me, I've had traditionally really long relationships. So even before I was married, I had people had long relationships. So I hadn't really done a whole bunch of dating. Mm-hmm.

[00:16:20] And so once we separated, I decided, okay, let me just kind of, let me see what's happening. It had been so long since I really dated. I was confused. Women were doing stuff, saying stuff that I just was not prepared for. Or the trap that I fell into early was where I would meet somebody. They got some kids my child's age. And we can like, oh, okay, we can do that thing. And I'm bringing my kids around, introducing them. And then I realized, ooh, this person don't work. And I said, I can't talk to him anymore.

[00:16:48] And my child's like, hey, can we go over to this person's house? Hey, can we? Oh, I made that mistake. And even to my daughter today, the one lady I was kind of talking to, she had a daughter the same age. She said, hey, what happened to that girl? I don't know. I don't know, girl. I don't know. And she would ask about it. She was like, you just don't want me to be friends with her. It's nothing to do with you being friends with her. It's just that me and her mother. So I learned. You learn stuff as you go. Oh, yeah. But I just didn't know those things.

[00:17:15] And so just about dating, people expectations, having sex at a certain age. Especially when you even used to have sex with one person. And now you got to be open to this other person and how they deal with and respond and stuff. And you are right. Sometimes people look for comfort. And so you end up putting that energy out, not knowing this, putting that energy out and finding somebody of the same situation that you're in. Oh, yeah. But usually what happens is this. And this is usually the way it is.

[00:17:43] And unfortunately, is that first person you met, that's just the person just to get you out of, you know, that's just the person that kind of sets you. The person out there using the person, but that first person, they're going to get messed up over. It's just because you don't really know. They're asking you what you like, what you want to do. And you used this person already knowing all this stuff. And now you got to be like, okay, oh, so do you prefer Coke or Pepsi? Do you wear shoes or how? You got to go through all these things to try to figure people out.

[00:18:13] And that's tiring by itself. That's tiring. And the one thing that I did and you should not do is talk about your ex at the first date. Yeah. I've done that. Guilty. Guilty as charged. It doesn't, I don't think it shows well, but doesn't bring comfort for the other person. But like you said, though, it is a learning experience. And I see it like this. Every girl I dated after I got divorced was a stair step to the right one because I figured out what I didn't want. I don't want that.

[00:18:43] I don't want that. I don't want lemon Coke. I don't want cherry Coke. But yeah, it was, man, John, it was interesting, man. It was wild. Wild. Yeah. Or it's always the girl. You meet somebody. He's, I really like this person. I mean, man, you'll spend time with them and they say, you know what? I don't like you. I'm not feeling, I don't like the way you, I'm going to give you an example because I did online dating.

[00:19:09] I did online dating because I'm not really going to meet people in grocery stores and stuff like that. I'm not really a person like that. So I did online dating. So I met this girl. She was a nice lady. We were talking and everything. And she told me this story about how she had been married before and she had got married when she was like 19, 19, 20 years old. And I said to her, I said, man, I don't know if I was be mature enough to be having a family and kids at 19 years old. She blocked me. She blocked me. And I was confused.

[00:19:39] I was like, what's just coming? That was weird. I didn't say it. So fast forward a couple of years later, I saw on another platform and said, oh my God. Okay. We matched with each other. We talked and she seemed real nice. And I thought it was okay. And I said, you know what? We matched before. And I told her what happened. She blocked me again. Hey, man. I don't know what I did. You didn't learn the first time, obviously. Clearly I didn't. I did not learn.

[00:20:06] I don't know what it is that I said about that particular subject matter for her to say, nah, see, he, you just don't bring it up. You know what it probably was? She probably thought, even though you weren't, she probably thought you were judging her. Even though you weren't. But it probably came off like that. But yeah, I dated way too soon instead of working on myself. And I finally figured that out that I had to sit back and work on myself and stop dating for a while. And things got a lot better. But man, it was crazy.

[00:20:36] It's, there's more women at our age than single men. Yeah. And it was, man, it was like on a, it was a carnival ride, man. I dated this one girl. My formula was pretty much talk a little bit, text FaceTime and kind of see if you like the person. And then you go out. So I decided we were going to do also learn first dates are always coffee, ice cream or something like that.

[00:21:03] Because if you don't, if I had to learn that, because you go and sit down and have this whole meal, you realize you don't like this person. Now you got to have a whole meal with this person you don't like. So I met this one girl. We went for, I think it was ice cream. And on the phone and everything, she seemed okay. But as we start to talk, she started to blur out unnecessary words. It was really weird. I was like, what's wrong with her? After about 15 minutes, I realized she has Tourette. I was like, that may have been something she wanted to say to me earlier. But she was just like saying stuff, saying words.

[00:21:32] And I thought I was like, okay, maybe it's just me. But she had Tourette and she never mentioned that she had Tourette. I was at a Chinese restaurant with a second date, not too far from the office. And we were sitting there eating. And then I heard the sound like her stomach crumbling. And then she started passing gas a little bit. And I said, is something wrong? She goes, yeah, I have IBS. Once again, maybe you ought to tell me that. And which is cool. But then she said, Chinese food really messes me up. You could have told me ahead of time.

[00:22:01] And we did not do Chinese. Yeah. So I excused myself to the bathroom. And I took my cell phone. And I called my friend Jim. I said, Jim, call me in five minutes. So I went back to the table. And Jim called me. I said, yes, Ms. Johnson, you have a toothache? Yes. I'll be happy to serve you. Yes, I'll be there in half an hour. I said, baby, we got to get our stuff to go because Ms. Johnson has a toothache. So I got to get back to the office. Okay, you sure? Yeah, babe, I'm sure. Yeah.

[00:22:31] So I dodged that bullet. And yeah, really. And I see it from the women's point of view, too. You really have to figure out when do you tell the other person your baggage? You know what I mean? Baggage telling is a huge dilemma sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And also, too, outside of nowhere to tell it, how much to tell and when. How much baggage? Yeah. So you don't want to sell too much at the beginning. And then they'd be like, oh, no, because you want to kind of get people to.

[00:23:01] If this is something I can run the truck, because once you say it, that's it. You can't take it back. If it's out there, that's it. So you got to make determination when you go say it. So she said, yeah, so Chinese food really messing me up. I said, we could have Mexican. Oh, that's worse. Wow. Yeah. So I've had. Yeah. So I dated. I was doing long term, like I would do two and a half years. And that was my that was my median mean.

[00:23:28] And it was always like 18 months too long because I was lazy. You know, something something's familiar. You're doing this and knowing doggone well is not going to end well. But were you the king of breakup? What was your go to move for breakup? Because I really am not a really big dater. I would date people for long periods of time. So for at least a year or so. You give it a year to see if it worked. I remember when I before I got married, I was dating this one girl.

[00:23:57] And at the beginning, I said, I really didn't want a relationship. And she said, oh, no, me neither. I don't want that. And so after we were sitting each other on and off for a couple of years, she wrote me this real long letter about our relationship. And in the first couple sentences, it said relationship. She didn't want to. I was like, we're not in a relationship. Relationship. And so I realized when I got a divorce and I started dating, I realized this. I have a rule.

[00:24:26] I don't sleep with people unless I'm okay with them being pregnant. Wait, back that up a little bit. Say what? I don't sleep with people unless I'm okay with them getting pregnant. So if I can't see myself having a child with them, I won't sleep with them. Okay. Gotcha. Okay. Because women, sometimes their emotions get so attached to you to a way to where once you cross that bridge and you realize you don't, then it turns into something else. And I really just don't want to deal with all that emotional baggage that comes with that. And so I'm more apt to say no than to yes.

[00:24:56] But a lot of times when you don't do that and when you don't go in that direction with women, then they think it's something wrong with them. It's not nothing wrong with you. It's just that I just, I don't see this going in a certain way. We can hang out. We can go places and spend time with each other. We can go out of town or whatever. But if I don't really see this as something tangible, then I try to get out as soon as I possibly can. It's not, I try not to do, it's not you, it's me. I try not to do that. But it's like, there are some worlds that cannot collide.

[00:25:25] There's some worlds that just don't mix. Yeah. You know how much? Like divorce. Yeah. Oh yeah. I told somebody this other day, love is just not enough. It's just not enough. I can love you as much as that. But if you don't have the things that we need to have both of us to move our life forward, it doesn't make a difference how much we love each other. Because everything is conditional in relationships. Yeah. And if you have conditions that you have to have on your, that you need, I have conditions that I need. And we see at the beginning, those are not working.

[00:25:53] Then we need, especially at our age, you need to move forward. I had a, I had one that it was going off the rails and I had to think fast. And the thing I came up with just shocked me. I looked at her. I said, we need to stop going out because I'm seeing three therapists. Did that work? You know what? I'm going to tell you something. I have a, one of my writing partners, she was in a relationship with this guy and she just couldn't get out of it. And I told her, I said, he's never going to, as long as he feels like you want to break

[00:26:23] her up, he's never going to do it. I said, you have to take the bullet and say, you know what? I did something wrong. I had to get out of it. Some people are not willing to do that. They're not willing to bite the bullet and say, you know what? It's me. I'm just like, they're not going to do this. So they get stuck in relationships because nobody wants to be the person to get out. I've loved languages. Yes, I am. I'm also a believer in, this is not everybody, but I do take in signs into consideration. I do.

[00:26:53] I'm at this point in my life that I don't have time to be wasting on people that me and them are not going to see the same way. We're not going to process information the same way. So if you have somebody and it may sound bad because we all are some part of our relationship. We all are some part of our experiences. So the sign is not a hundred percent, but it gives you an insight into who the person is and how they're going to deal with you. So if we are not compatible signs, usually when I was younger, I'd be like, let's just see. No, no, there's some signs I just don't deal with.

[00:27:22] Some love languages. We not. I'm a, my love language is acts of service. If you can take some things off of my plate to do, I would love you forever. You're going to, you're going to mow my yard naked. I love you, but that got me in trouble a couple of times. Cause I dated a girl not too far from here and I got a yard looking good and fix this at her house, this, that, and the other. And man, she fell in love and she couldn't help it. And I wasn't there.

[00:27:51] I just wasn't there. So she broke up with me a couple of times cause I didn't love her. But then she came right back cause I was the best boyfriend ever. They didn't love her. I can understand it, but we kept going back and forth. And I finally said, look, we got to stop this going back and forth. You're a nice girl. There's somebody out there for you and I'm not that guy, but he will never fix your yard like I did. Yes. So if you could deal with having a raggedy yard, I'm sure you could find somebody. Oh man.

[00:28:19] So do you think being a storyteller has given you any unique insights into building meaningful connections and dating and relationships? Yes. Because I look at, when I look at dating in general, it's all really about how, about stories is how we see life. And I think a lot of times where I try to see the bigger picture of things. And so I try to take people into consideration about not just how they look, look is very

[00:28:46] great because men are very visual, but I also try to see how deep they are. Is that, are they team players? Are they willing to contribute? And one thing that I learned from my relationship that I learned, and I take this forward is that everybody has to be responsible in the marriage, in the relationship. You have to be responsible. They have to have a responsibility. They have to be happy. This is what you're supposed to do in this place. This is my expectations. Because if you don't do that, just like when I'm building characters in film and television, when I'm creating a character, I give them a whole foundation.

[00:29:16] I give them birth dates, brothers, sisters, even if we never discuss those things in the movie, because if not, they'll just be doing anything. So just staying in a relationship. If we don't set boundaries about what it is we expect from each other, what happens, people be doing stuff and we confuse why they're doing it. We never really get to where we're trying to go. We never get to that, that, that common thing that we say. If we say in January, we're going to go on vacation in December and we're not going to go out as much. We're not going to do certain things. We're not going to take these weekend trips because we're going to save all the money because we're going to go to Africa where it may be.

[00:29:46] That works for a couple of months. And then three months down the line, somebody say, hey, I want some red bottoms. Well, no, we're not on the same page. Remember, we had this discussion about that. And a lot of times in relationships, because people are not true, honest about their expectations, instead of saying, you know what? I like the red bottoms. Okay. You like to buy red bottoms every night there? Let's figure out a way to work that into what our plan is. So it won't be such a drastic into our relationship. So people don't really sit down in relationships and plan things out.

[00:30:12] They don't have those honest conversations because they're so afraid of the other person leaving. But sometimes a person leaving is probably a blessing because they probably blocking, they blocking you from somebody else that really needs to be there. All right, John, time out. What's a red bottom? Oh, red bottom shoes. I was trying to figure out what a red bottom was. I'm like, what the hell is a red bottom? Yeah, they're really expensive shoes. About $1,500, $2,000. They're expensive shoes. Dang. Let's talk about one thing. Community.

[00:30:40] How important is community in healing? So I'm a big person. I do a lot of volunteering. So it's either through mentoring other filmmakers, doing community events. I'm really big into that. So for me, it is important that the other person I'm with is open to also giving of themselves too. Because if they're not willing to give to other people they don't know, it's going to be really hard for them to give to me that they do know. And that happens so much.

[00:31:07] A lot of times people can be so focused on just them. Relationship is about relating to each other. How do we relate to each other? How do we get our two separate worlds and merge them together for the best? And a lot of times, sometimes people get hooked up in gender roles and other things. I'm a firm believer in if you do better with balancing a checkbook, then you should do it. If you do better with going to the grocery store, you should do that. If I'm better with cooking, then I should do that.

[00:31:35] Understanding your relationship is not like everybody else's relationship. And how you relate to yourself and the community around you and how you want to give yourself we'll make a big determination of how our relationship is going to work. Wow. All right, John. Man, my man got about a half hour attention span, but man, that was fun. We'll have to do this again. Yes. I don't get to talk too much. I did a podcast some years ago after I got divorced and it was about mental health.

[00:32:03] And the lady, the host, she was like, I was trying not to get her to take me down certain roads. But she felt out a way to get me to ask a question about divorce. And it's so funny because it's like one of the best clips I have on social media because she was able to pull it out for me. So I don't really talk about the divorce, but I know that whatever I'm going to, I like to express that because I'm sure that somebody else is sitting somewhere saying, man, I don't know how to do it. People don't need to live on an island. Whatever you went through, I guarantee you there's a YouTube video.

[00:32:31] There is an article or something to help you get through it. And so I like to say that I can at least express the things I've braided. I can maybe help somebody else too. Oh yeah, definitely. Where can my listeners and viewers find you on the internet? I am easy. John Wayne S. Iii on all social media platforms. I'm pretty Googled. John Wayne S. III. I'm a pretty Google-able person. I just did a documentary that's out now called The Greenwood Project.

[00:32:58] It's about the whole total race war and how the massacre devastated a community and killed a lot of people. So it is out now that people can, if they're interested in those type of documents, they can look at. All right, John. We appreciate your time. And thanks again for taking your time out for Thursday night.