The uniform can come off in a single moment. The identity you built around it can collapse just as fast. We sit down with former collegiate athlete, author, and speaker Hakeem Bourne McFarlane for an unfiltered story of grief, addiction, jail, and the long climb back to self-respect, self-trust, and real purpose. If you’ve ever felt lost after sports, burned out by a job title, or trapped in habits that don’t match who you say you are, this conversation hits home.

We talk about why so many men replace pain with performance, how unprocessed grief shows up as anger and self-sabotage, and what it means to stop outsourcing your identity to approval, money, or noise. Hakeem breaks down his “Choose Yourself” framework with clear steps: recognize triggers, evaluate your environment, set a foundation, invest intentionally, then create and contribute. The theme is simple but demanding: you don’t find your identity, you build it through daily work when nobody’s watching.

A huge part of the rebuild is practical sleep hygiene and routines that create discipline without relying on hype. We get specific about digital sunsets, curfews, kick-out times, morning routines, and the “dabble, don’t depend” mindset for dopamine traps like screens, caffeine, porn, weed, nicotine, and processed food. We also dig into cleaning up your screen time by filtering your feed and protecting your five senses so you create more than you consume.

If you want one move you can make today, Hakeem gives it straight: start a simple morning routine for mind, body, and spirit, then grow it over time. Subscribe for more conversations built around real advancement, share this with someone who needs a reset, and leave a review with the habit you’re choosing to change next.

Support the show

Are you a guest with a message of hope and faith, overcome tragedy and addiction, creativity, invention, or you just have questions about society and culture? The “They Can Me Mista Yu” brand of podcasts is looking for guests!

Book your interview today: https://www.joinpodmatch.com/theycallmemistayu

Give the shows a listen: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/they-call-me-mista-yu/id1535535535

Faith. Society & Culture. Your Inspirational Stories. Mental Health. Entrepreneurship. We talk about what matters to you!

Join Mista Yu across our shows:

🎙 Inspiration Station

🎙 They Call Me Mista Yu

🎙 One on One With Mista Yu

🎙 The Men’s Roundtable Series / MRTS Interview Spotlight

If you would like to support the show, here’s how you can do that: https://www.patreon.com/cw/theycallmemistayu and https://buymeacoffee.com/theycallmemistayu

Thank you for watching and listening!

Stewardship is one of those words that can make people brace for a money talk, but Larry O'nan flips that assumption fast. We sit down one-on-one to unpack stewardship as something much bigger: a daily way of living where we manage what’s been entrusted to us with care, purpose, and integrity. If you’ve been feeling busy but strangely unfulfilled, this conversation puts language to what might be missing and gives you a cleaner framework for how to lead yourself.

Larry shares how he started out chasing a life in theater, then hit a hard realization about performing nonstop and losing a sense of who you are. That detour led him into decades of ministry and nonprofit leadership, where he discovered that the deepest fundraising results come not from pressure or guilt, but from lifestyle stewardship and joyful participation. We talk about why money is only one part of stewardship, how time and talent matter just as much, and why trust sits at the center of every “resource” conversation.

You’ll also hear a story you won’t forget about a builder who cuts corners on a final house and then gets handed the keys as a gift. From there, we get practical about intentional living: how Larry starts his day, how he thinks about everyday interactions, and why the “laws of the harvest” require patience if you want lasting outcomes in leadership, faith, and generosity.

If you want a clear, grounded take on stewardship, intentional living, nonprofit fundraising values, and purpose-driven leadership, press play. Subscribe on YouTube or Apple Podcasts, share this with a friend who needs a reset, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

Support the show

Are you a guest with a message of hope and faith, overcome tragedy and addiction, creativity, invention, or you just have questions about society and culture? The “They Can Me Mista Yu” brand of podcasts is looking for guests!

Book your interview today: https://www.joinpodmatch.com/theycallmemistayu

Give the shows a listen: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/they-call-me-mista-yu/id1535535535

Faith. Society & Culture. Your Inspirational Stories. Mental Health. Entrepreneurship. We talk about what matters to you!

Join Mista Yu across our shows:

🎙 Inspiration Station

🎙 They Call Me Mista Yu

🎙 One on One With Mista Yu

🎙 The Men’s Roundtable Series / MRTS Interview Spotlight

If you would like to support the show, here’s how you can do that: https://www.patreon.com/cw/theycallmemistayu and https://buymeacoffee.com/theycallmemistayu

Thank you for watching and listening!

A single college football play can end a season. For Ken Kunken, it rewrote an entire life. Ken joins us to tell the story of a Halloween 1970 tackle at Cornell that broke his neck and caused a high cervical spinal cord injury, leaving him a quadriplegic and dependent on others for daily living. What follows is not a “feel good” shortcut, but an honest walk through fear, frustration, and the hard work of rebuilding a future when the world expects you to shrink.

We talk about rehab and the moment Ken reads a bleak career forecast that suggests he might someday sell magazine subscriptions by phone, even though he couldn’t dial a rotary phone or take notes. From there, Ken explains the mindset shift that mattered most: betting on his mental ability, returning to school, and leaning into psychology, counseling, and rehabilitation counseling so he can give back. He shares what it was like to mail 200+ resumes in the 1970s, get rejected again and again, and finally find an organization willing to hire a person with a visible disability long before the Americans with Disabilities Act changed accessibility expectations.

Ken also opens up about the day-to-day reality of dependence, the discipline of asking clearly for help, and the personal surprise he never expected: love, marriage, and becoming a father of triplets through IVF. We close with his leap into law, his years as an assistant district attorney in Nassau County, and his unapologetic belief that disability inclusion and DEI make workplaces better for everyone.

Subscribe for more one-on-one stories, share this with someone who needs a reset, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway: what “impossible” thing are you willing to try anyway?

Support the show

Are you a guest with a message of hope and faith, overcome tragedy and addiction, creativity, invention, or you just have questions about society and culture? The “They Can Me Mista Yu” brand of podcasts is looking for guests!

Book your interview today: https://www.joinpodmatch.com/theycallmemistayu

Give the shows a listen: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/they-call-me-mista-yu/id1535535535

Faith. Society & Culture. Your Inspirational Stories. Mental Health. Entrepreneurship. We talk about what matters to you!

Join Mista Yu across our shows:

🎙 Inspiration Station

🎙 They Call Me Mista Yu

🎙 One on One With Mista Yu

🎙 The Men’s Roundtable Series / MRTS Interview Spotlight

If you would like to support the show, here’s how you can do that: https://www.patreon.com/cw/theycallmemistayu and https://buymeacoffee.com/theycallmemistayu

Thank you for watching and listening!