Lessons - The Man Behind Rihanna, Kanye and Jay-Z's Biggest Hits | Benny Pough - Fmr Roc Nation President

In this lessons episode, explore how adversity can redefine purpose and reshape the principles that guide a meaningful life, discover why betting on personal growth requires preparation and confidence. Understand how intuition, authenticity, and teamwork create lasting impact, and uncover how vulnerability and self-reflection help break generational cycles and strengthen leadership. I want to now sort of pivot into the second half of your life, which is the post-crash post-2014. Even on the book you wrote, you broke it down into six different pieces. So you did intuition mastery, pivot, authenticity, connections, and teamwork. What does that mean? Why are those the titles? What is relevant for that? Is that your life journey and all the different things you had to master or walk me through that? Those are the pillars that I live and subscribe by. When I looked at it and the accident pulled it all together, like literally and figuratively, and that why I say God put a book inside of me, the title of the book is on impact. And when I looked at my life, when I decided that I was going to move forward with this, I thought about, okay, what is life? What has the value been for me? What are the most important things that I can look at in a literal and symbolic way that says who I am? And these are the acronyms then became that in impact, intuition, very intuitive mastery. Obviously that's important in order to advance and grow. Pivot is needed in knowing when time to move is important in whether it's business or professional authenticity. Who you see now is who you saw yesterday and who you will see again with modifications, right? Connections have been a driving force in my life and is equally teamwork, which is not just the job, but also family and people that you depend on to help you grow as an individual. That's how it all came together. I got it. Okay, that makes sense. Talk to me about betting on yourself. I love the concept of betting on yourself. I think more people should bet on themselves, but they're scared shitless to do it. So how did you figure out you can bet on yourself? It's an overused term, but for me, it's driven me to getting to the next step of my life is realizing I can't be held. I can't be restricted. I can't be scared. Ultimately, it's not at that comfort level to understand how important it is for you to have that freedom. So what you have to do is take small steps to build your confidence so that you can realize that the value once you take that step in believing in oneself, believing in yourself, did everything else is okay? Everything else is okay. And because of that, I've made the preparation and even in instances when I wasn't prepared, realizing that I would be okay based on the choices I had to make both in good and bad situations. And a lot of that is work. It's no different in anything else. You can't just wake up one day and say, I want to bet on myself, but you're not prepared yourself. It's no different than this. You probably have thousands of interviews. You can just go off. You can just go because you're prepared. So now, if someone offered you and said, hey, listen, I want you at NBC, you go like, maybe you know, because yes, what? At the end of the day, you know, man, you prepared yourself for it. And that's what betting on yourself is what's akin to is is preparing yourself for bigger and greater things that rest inside of you to move forward with. When did you when did you first feel you could do that? That's not something that comes out of the gate. Like when you're maybe it is, I don't know, but that's a learned experience. That conversation with my dad, you know, showed me a lot because my father is a strong man, no nonsense. And when I was able to persuade him, right, against what he wanted, I realized like, okay, there's a talent there, right? There's, I have confidence. And that's what that moment, that's bark was that boost the confidence to realize like, you know what, it's okay. And don't give up because, you know, the first time I asked wasn't like, yes, it's the silent more. Tell me more, right? So I could have just like, oh, I forget it. But it was like, no, this is what I have passion for. And I realized at that point, um, selling was my thing at that point. I realized, okay, if I could give my father to change his mind, then, you know, there's something I need to work continue to work on. And obviously the paper, the paper, um, business opened up like, I was excited, man. Like I was excited selling. I was exciting being like, yo, you trying to beat me, you're not going to get over on me, right? Like, yeah, I just, I just, I love the hunt, right? I just love the hunt. Do you, do you take that excitement? Like, when you're looking for the next thing because now you're in, now you're in another phase of your life where you, you, you wrote a book, you're, you're putting together a conference, you're putting together in the media company. Um, do you look for excitement and things that you do? Is that kind of like your north star for this is my purpose? This is what I should be working on right now. Yeah, I'm definitely a change agent. I, for me, it's, it's, uh, about growing companies, growing, um, individuals and obviously growing myself to get the best out of, of, of all of the above. And I realized that through my journey and, and, and corporate is that truly was my gift and superpower was enabling people to find, you know, that essence in them and that comfort, and that comfortability of like someone giving them a chance and surrounding them and protecting them as they're able to grow to be who they will. Yeah, I was, I was watching like shows before we jumped on just doing my research as I always do. And there was actually one question that one, uh, one host asked you and I've never asked anybody this on the show before, but you're, you had a beautiful answer. Um, and it was about masculinity. And the reason why I think it's a great question is because even when, you know, you've referenced your dad a few times, you've referenced your family, you got excited when you found out that I'm trying to start a family and shit. Like, so I think that I, I, I want to hear your definition of what masculinity is and what being a father is and, and, and, because all ties back to balance, and it all ties back to everything you've gone through in your life. So what does that mean to you because I feel like it's not really discussed enough for people that are fathers and, and trying to build a family and trying to support. Um, it's, it's really being able to embrace your vulnerabilities, right? Um, and especially in, in the African-American culture, it's better than it was, but, you know, you could show no weakness. Like, you grew up, you just had to be hard. Like, you know, everything was about defending yourself. Everything was about the fight. Everything was about push you down. Um, if necessary, or beat you down to show everyone not to mess with me, it's about toughness. As I grew older, I realized, you know, the value was actually hearing, you know, the sentiments and concerns are how people felt about me, meaning the people who I cared for. And, you know, growing up in the household, like my father, um, who he was, and how he was, he was disciplined, you know, emotions, you didn't even share with your children. Like, so, you know, we're still at this point. Like, my father's never audibly said, I love you. All right, he showed that he's, you know, his love and care, but his generation could never save the words. So you go through life knowing that there's someone who love you with that, those three words, Stevie Wonder, right? Um, carries so much impact and power. So like, even when I was in the hospital, which was insane, you know, and I never realized this, which was another eye opener. My parents, when they found out I was in the accident, my mother had Alzheimer's. And they drove the 13 hours, the same 13 hours coming up and I came out of the coma. And when I looked up, um, when they came, I saw the weight and the gravity on my father's face. And when you realize when you're in a hospital bed, there's no mirrors. So you have no idea the condition that you're in. Like no one's like, hey, look at you, you're jacked up. You only take it by the actions. And what you see other people seeing looking at you. And when I saw my father's face, and I saw the gravity and the thought that he was looking at me as though he could lose his only son. That's when I realized that, you know, I was in a bad way. And I couldn't take the energy. So I stopped everyone from visiting me and I had to, um, find deep inside of me to get better on my own to get better on my own. So with that, you know, in the changes that I've made in life, you know, although I might not have heard my father say, I love you. I always tell people who I love. I love them, male, female and different, right? So, um, breaking the cycle was the equally important and also cherishing the people that you share that they know exactly how you feel. That's the wrong answer. Dude, that was really, no, it was super powerful. And you know, it's because it means a lot to you. I mean, I think that a lot of, a lot of your journey has been self-reflection and self-awareness and who you are in this world for not just yourself, but the people closest to you, people closest to are usually your family and your friends and whatnot. And then you're just, okay, those are the people that are closest to me. Then what does it mean to be a father? What does it mean to be a male figure in a household and whatnot? And it's different for all. I mean, you just mentioned it was prevalent in the African-American community. I'm pretty sure if I go back to my grandpa or my great-grandpa, they weren't, they weren't smiling and shit all the time either. Like it's, there's definitely cultural differences for sure, but I mean, I think a lot of old people were hardest fuck. They went through it. They went through it and empathy is definitely not on the menu, right? And that's not a good way to live. Yeah, it's not, but it's up to us to break the cycle, right? Yeah. If you want change, then you have to change. Check out the links in the description to watch the full episode. See you in the next one.