The Contrarian Mindset: Radikal Hughes Challenging the Status Quo for Success

Ever feel like society's playbook for success is just a cycle of copy and paste? All these furus and follower-bought "influencers" charging to teach others what they haven't done themselves...

I'm super fucking stoked to peel back the curtain on an extraordinary life that refuses to conform. Join me as I sit down with the homie Radikal Hughes, a fellow contrarian powerhouse creator whose life is a testament to breaking the mold.

From a musician to a provocative YouTube content creator, Rad doesn't just push boundaries; he gets real about the "credit parrots" and high-ticket sales furu's polished facades often sold to us at a premium. 

This isn’t your usual podcast dialogue. It's a contrarian exploration of what it means to live authentically in an age of influencers who often mask the raw truth and the necessity of cutting through the superficial allure of lifestyle marketing.

Rad’s insights on the Asian business scene, his unique take on cultural values, and his unfiltered views on self-improvement will challenge you to rethink your definitions of success and authenticity.

"If your why doesn't make you cry, your whole business is gonna die." Rad emphases how deep emotional connection to one's purpose is crucial for success.

Tune in if you're ready to disrupt the norm and are hungry for a life that's as unapologetically real as it gets. 

If you've been following this podcast for a while you know I'd always ask...

Why follow a path laid by others when you can carve your own?

If you found a piece of yourself in our stories, or had a good laugh during your journey of authenticity and breaking societal molds, don't stop here.

Head over to our website for more episodes that will challenge, inspire, and empower you. 

Hit subscribe, leave us a review if you loved what you heard, and share this episode with someone who needs to hear it.

Together, let's redefine success and start living life on our own audacious terms. 

Catch you in the next episode – stay fit, stay frugal, and most importantly, stay true to you.

Key Takeaways
Rad identifies self-awareness as his greatest gift, crucial to understanding personal desires and aiding others in achieving the same clarity.
The conversation highlights the societal struggle with self-identity and the distraction of vanity in pursuing life's purpose.
According to Rad, authentic content creation involves both evoking emotion and mastering the art of persuasion, balancing genuine influence with intentional manipulation.
Transparency, not perfection, builds trust and authentic connections with audiences, a philosophy Rad firmly champions in both life and content creation.
Rad dreams of being a father who empowers his daughter and raises her to be a world-changer, reflecting on the importance of male figures in shaping young women's lives.

Thank you for spending your time with us!

Subscribe to my Youtube & Join our tribe💜

Follow me (it's not weird):
Instagram: @fitnfrugalpod or @tawnisaurus
Facebook | Tiktok | LinkedIn

Please let me know your favorite moments:
Like, Subscribe & Review over on Apple or Spotify

Transcript

[TRANSCRIPT]

0:00:04 - (Tawni Nguyen): Hey, guys. Welcome back to fit and frugal. I've taken some time off, gained some clarity, and thank you for following me and, you know, sticking around. Today. I have a super fucking phenomenal, powerhouse energy, squirrel on cocaine motherfucker with me. He's giving me all sorts of fucking eyes right now. But welcome back. I'm Tawni Nguyen, and here with me is my friend Rad.

0:00:26 - (Radikal Hughes): Thank you so much for having me.

0:00:27 - (Tawni Nguyen): He's given a little bit of the m and m, you know, mom, spaghetti vibes right now.

0:00:32 - (Radikal Hughes): Where are we gonna go with this conversation? That's what I wanna know. Keep it locked in.

0:00:36 - (Tawni Nguyen): Keep it locked in. He was working on his, I think we had a green room outside and he was like, you know, I'm working on my vibe.

0:00:43 - (Radikal Hughes): I had to make sure you didn't get sued on my conversation.

0:00:45 - (Tawni Nguyen): Oh, shit.

0:00:46 - (Radikal Hughes): Yeah. Protecting your ass.

0:00:48 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah. No. So I love your character and how much humor you have, right. Because coming from an artist and being a creator yourself, what do you think is your biggest gift? Because you come from music and now you create YouTube content, right?

0:01:04 - (Radikal Hughes): Yeah.

0:01:05 - (Tawni Nguyen): What is your gift that you've developed over these past few years?

0:01:09 - (Radikal Hughes): I would say self awareness.

0:01:10 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah, yeah.

0:01:11 - (Radikal Hughes): Self awareness of what I want. Self awareness of how I want to help other people and helping other people practice that same quality.

0:01:19 - (Tawni Nguyen): Why do you think we as a society lack so much of that?

0:01:23 - (Radikal Hughes): I think as a society we don't know who we are. And I think we are constantly trying to find purpose in things that are completely vain in life. There's nothing wrong with liking nice things and doing it big and better, but if you're chasing the profit, you're missing the entire message, which is the people. And so I feel like people put the material things or even with lifestyle marketing, the yachts, the hot chicks of mansions, making it rain.

0:01:51 - (Radikal Hughes): That right there is what people lead with in marketing, in my opinion, for the most part. And there's a disconnect in the messaging of what you're actually bringing to that person. So if they're not reaching those results and they're feeling like they're failing. And so I like to lead with purpose over that.

0:02:09 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah. And that's another thing with social media too, because it's such a high attention grabbing economy that everyone wants your attention and nothing lasts past, like, what, 8 seconds? Do it right. In the first 8 seconds, you lose viewership. And as a youtuber, you know, like click through, rate. All of these are just about engagement, just about connecting with people. Right? Something you said the other day really resonates with me.

0:02:33 - (Tawni Nguyen): It kind of brought, it's more triggering, which is good. This is why I want to go deep into it, is that you said, to be a good creator, you have to know how to evoke emotions, but that also requires you to be able to manipulate. Right.

0:02:46 - (Radikal Hughes): Because you have to become a master manipulator.

0:02:48 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah, you have to become a master manipulator. And I sat on that for a while, and I was like, hmm. Like, how does that make me feel?

0:02:56 - (Radikal Hughes): It sounds very narcissistic, but it is. It's really true. If you don't own the conversation, somebody else will. If you don't own your life, somebody else will. There's nothing wrong with being a manipulator. Just don't do it to hurt other people.

0:03:07 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah.

0:03:07 - (Radikal Hughes): Right.

0:03:08 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah. But where does that line differentiates in between doing it out of the intention to help to serve versus doing it because, you know, I think, statistically speaking, narcissistic people would just have a higher chance at success because of that worth that they allow themselves, first, they give themselves permission to be successful, and two, they allow themselves to go after the things they want. And you just said that, like, there's nothing wrong with going after the big, lavish lifestyle.

0:03:35 - (Tawni Nguyen): But where does that line end as serving versus doing something? Because you know that that's what people want.

0:03:44 - (Radikal Hughes): I think it comes down to intentionality, and I think it's a great area. I think it just depends on the person.

0:03:50 - (Tawni Nguyen): Mm hmm.

0:03:50 - (Radikal Hughes): Right.

0:03:51 - (Tawni Nguyen): Why? Why is that?

0:03:52 - (Radikal Hughes): Cause we're not all the same, and we all don't think the same, and we never will. Right. And so for me to say, hey, this is, this is where my red line is on it, it could be completely different from somebody else. Right. And so I don't like to project my moral standard on other people, but what I do want them to understand is, if you're a coach in a coaching program, lead your people. Right. Don't let your people lead you. They're paying you to lead them, so lead them.

0:04:16 - (Radikal Hughes): If you're making the content, make the content that you wanna make. Don't let it be dictated by the industry. Right. And whatever. So here's the thing. If you don't make people feel they're not gonna watch your content, and so many people are scared to be them or step out and scared to be them because their views may not be popular, somebody might not think that they're right. The bottom line is, you can't please everybody. I tell my students all the time, you're called to somebody, not everybody, right?

0:04:43 - (Radikal Hughes): And your vibe attracts your tribe. So if you focus on your vibe, going after your tribe, you being authentically you is going to help you actually reach those people. Had I not been authentically myself with you when Kevin Yee shout outs to the master connector. Okay. If I had not been myself with you, we would not be having this podcast right now. Right? And so that vibe attracts that tribe. We're very similar. We're both contrarians. We're both empathetic people. We want to change the world. We want to make the world a better place. We've both been through a lot of shit, in my opinion.

0:05:16 - (Radikal Hughes): You have to manipulate the entire situation. You cannot let people dictate how your content is made, how your life is ran, and what you do when you step into this world.

0:05:27 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah. So if you guys didn't know, he goes by Rad, right? I told him I was like, man, I don't like your normal name. Let's just say, like, my name.

0:05:35 - (Radikal Hughes): Dan, man. That's my slave name. You know what I mean?

0:05:38 - (Tawni Nguyen): Rad marketer. And I think, what?

0:05:40 - (Radikal Hughes): Radical marketer?

0:05:41 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah, radical market.

0:05:43 - (Radikal Hughes): Radical market. The contrarian one.

0:05:45 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah. So, you know, a lot of people, I feel, in influence based influencer space these days, they are slave to their content because the things that they say have to fit their brand messaging. And that's something that really gives me, like, the ick, because they're like, unless I can talk about this on your podcast, I don't want to do it. I'm like, but where is the line with authenticity, then? Because if you don't allow yourself to speak from your heart, right? Because at. At the end of the day, like, when you want to lead with service, you want to lead with your heart centered. Like, you want to speak your truth, and that is how you attract the people that are meant for you.

0:06:18 - (Tawni Nguyen): But if you only want to say certain things because of that identity that you tie yourself to is your lane, your box, whatever you want to call it, you then again, become a sheep to society because that's what society wants out of you versus this is what I want to, and this is what I want to evolve to. It's like levels in Pokemon, right?

0:06:35 - (Radikal Hughes): 100%. It's like, I don't play Pokemon, but can only imagine.

0:06:39 - (Tawni Nguyen): And, yeah, like, at what point do you identify yourself as, like, oh, like, this is the end of that part of my growth. Like, I'm ready to take the next step. But is my audience or my followership going to be ready for this next level of me. And how do you.

0:06:53 - (Radikal Hughes): That's where a new audience comes in. Right? So you cannot lead people where they're not willing to go, and so you can outgrow your audience, and that's where the pivot comes in. And that's where it comes, really. You know, I like to say everything has a time, a rhythm, and a season, and some people are operating their life and their business in the wrong season. Sometimes it's really a winner, and you need to let some shit die in spring forth into a new season.

0:07:18 - (Radikal Hughes): Yeah, but I feel like so many people are holding on to the past life or the past success that they're not. They're just stagnant. Right. And so you being 100%, you spending time with your. And that's why I feel like all the time, and that's what's really cool about you is that you love nature. Right? Like, you spend probably a lot of time with internal dialogue and self reflection. I think that that is such a huge thing for an entrepreneur, because if you don't spend time with yourself, how will you know yourself?

0:07:46 - (Radikal Hughes): And then if you don't know yourself, how will you know what you want to do otherwise? Now you're running on the hamster wheel of doing what everybody else says, hey, you're asian. You're a female. You have to be this. You have to dress like this. You have to sound like this. You have to be culturally appropriate. Like, all these things get pushed on to you that you have to walk in when that may not be anything that you want to do.

0:08:06 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah. And I feel like that's where a lot of female entrepreneurs, like, that's what they think they have to do, is that they, the only way they can create impact, which now it's called the influence people really want to influence. I think it comes from a space of wanting a deep connection with people, because at the end of the day, like, we desire to feel we belong, and that's it. That's the core root of belonging.

0:08:29 - (Tawni Nguyen): But a lot of that, I think we feel like we have to sabotage ourselves to fit in, because I think they misplace belonging and fitting in as the same sentence, but it's really not right. So, you know, as a man, it's different. You're a white dude, so you and I have different adversities that we have to face. We talked about this a little bit earlier with the grit and the stuff that we have to get through to get to this next level of us. And what was the hardest thing for you to let go of, of which identities you held onto the most, that was the most difficult for you to get to where you are today.

0:09:04 - (Radikal Hughes): I had to embrace everything I didn't like about myself. I was a person that struggled with identity issues my entire life. My parents were divorced. My dad, you could say he's a racist, right? My mom, a single mother, bus driver from Saginaw, Michigan, raised me in latino and black communities my entire life. I didn't fit in with white people, and I didn't play soccer, and I didn't play tennis. I played football. I played basketball.

0:09:38 - (Radikal Hughes): I skipped school. I was in hip hop music. I never related with caucasian youth, right? And if I did, it was troubled caucasian youth, right? And so I struggled with this identity. I was too this for that, and I was too that for this. And that really bothered me for a long time. And if I'm completely honest with you, I really didn't come to grips with that until the age of 30. And I'm 38 right now. And being able to relate with people in sales and be a top 1% performer in corporate America and SaaS and telecom, all that, I've been able to always be very similar to you in the sense of, I can relate with anybody and everybody.

0:10:22 - (Radikal Hughes): I can make people feel comfortable. I can mirror them, and I can find something to relate with, a common bond. It's like what you said. It was a in the green room conversation. You guys want to hear those green room conversations, by the way, in the green room conversation, you said that there was a lot of things that you had to say and do in a portion of your life to have success. And that is something that's learned, right? And so for me, I had to embrace the different part of me, the person that really can't speak proper English, the person that is very unique in how they think, and very extremists in some ways, of, like, extremists of simplicity, right? And just, you know, contrarian on all levels, from my political beliefs to my spiritual beliefs to how I create content on how I lead others and what I believe and just all types of stuff. I had to come to terms with that and be okay, because what I was realizing was I was never okay with me.

0:11:18 - (Radikal Hughes): And so now what I'm trying to do is help people be. Be radical and be themselves. You know, live, love, inspire, live the life of your dreams, love others, and love what you do and inspire others by what you do. So my entire movement of radical nation is helping people truly tap into the beautiful person that they are. Help them fully embrace that and inspire others by what they do. There was one thing I wanted to touch on when you said, authenticity.

0:11:39 - (Radikal Hughes): Okay, I tell people all the time, transparency builds trust, right? And if you're not transparent, you're missing the mark. As a creator and as a coach and as an entrepreneur, it doesn't matter how fancy your sales page is, how many concerts and how many stages you've rocked on, if you are not transparent with people, you are missing the mark. Transparency is what builds trust. And that right there is the best funnel hacking that you can ever do.

0:12:05 - (Radikal Hughes): So many people are focused on the perfect funnel and the perfect copy and the perfect. That doesn't matter. People buy how they want to feel. People want to feel, help them feel. And so when you tap into your authenticity, you tap into your purpose, you tap into your tribe. Now you're literally creating a vibe that resonates. And with many people, like, oh, I really like this person. There's something different about them. And other people are like, man, fuck this guy. I don't like this guy at all.

0:12:31 - (Radikal Hughes): He's a piece of shit, right? So that's fine. But if you look at people that have been uber successful in content creation, influencing whether any space, you know, even grant cardone, like, people could like, man, that guy's a shock jock. I don't like him. But there's people like, man, I love Uncle G. People like Gary Vee, like, man, get this hipster out of here. But there's people like, man, Gary Chichen. Gary Vee changed my life.

0:12:52 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah.

0:12:53 - (Radikal Hughes): So if they weren't themselves, they wouldn't have the success that they had. And then I want to tell everybody, listening to this beautiful, amazing, frugal podcast, by the way, that you all are enough and you have a purpose on your life now. Finding that, getting clear on that, digging for that is worth it. And personal development, spiritual development, relational development, health development, these things matter. It's not woosa from bad boys, you know? Like, it really matters.

0:13:21 - (Radikal Hughes): The biggest investment you'll ever make is on yourself. Because when you know yourself, you can pivot and pivot and pivot as you grow and as you change and as you walk through different seasons of your life, and you can touch the world. Never before have we had more access than we do right now. We can literally be in Vietnam, we can literally be in Kuala Lumpur, we can literally be in Bali with just your phone.

0:13:42 - (Radikal Hughes): Right? And you can touch the world. Never before we had access to this type of technology. And we're getting more with AI, spatial computing, VR, all of that. It's not going to get any less than. It's going to get more than. So tap into who you are, get to know who you are. What is your. Why? Why does it make you cry? Because if your why doesn't make you cry, your whole business is going to die.

0:14:05 - (Tawni Nguyen): And I think that part of vulnerability or the lack of self connection is where a lot of people get stuck, right? Because, one, they can't allow themselves to shed that part of identity. Identity is limiting beliefs, I feel like. And that lack of self awareness to where. Now there's a lot of messaging on social media, especially with female influencers. I just don't feel like they understand what they're saying because they're mass producing and they're replicating other models of other.

0:14:32 - (Tawni Nguyen): What other people are saying. So that, to me, is just a pile of garbage, because you're just regurgitating what the Internet is saying. But I'm like, do you really, truly believe in your message? Right. Because you can feel when someone's speaking from their heart that they actually believe in what they're saying. A lot of people are throwing around, like, walking in your purpose. So when you said that, a lot of.

0:14:49 - (Tawni Nguyen): For the last few years, I couldn't define what purpose really meant. Right. So when you say things, when you say things like contrarian, it's getting thrown more and more popularized.

0:15:02 - (Radikal Hughes): Goes against the grain.

0:15:03 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah, yeah. But now that everyone thinks they're against the grain, does that make that mainstream? Now? Because everyone thinks they're contrarian, now you.

0:15:11 - (Radikal Hughes): Think they are, but they're not.

0:15:12 - (Tawni Nguyen): Right. And at what point is like, well, then everyone is just believing that they're contrarian. They can say what the fuck they want. Slap a brand on themselves.

0:15:20 - (Radikal Hughes): Yeah.

0:15:21 - (Tawni Nguyen): Because as long as you said, if they have the right sales page, if they have the team that does their marketing for them.

0:15:26 - (Radikal Hughes): Yeah.

0:15:27 - (Tawni Nguyen): It doesn't even come from them anymore. It comes from the people that know how to do things better than them. And that's why this outsourced economy that I believe supports the lifeline of creators and of entrepreneurs, it's getting diluted so hard that, like, authenticity is just bleeding.

0:15:41 - (Radikal Hughes): Yeah.

0:15:42 - (Tawni Nguyen): Because we don't have enough fucking time. We don't have enough attention, you know? Yeah, yeah.

0:15:46 - (Radikal Hughes): You know, it's, you know, you say something really good there, right? A lot of people will say they're something, but they're really not. You know, if you say you're an apple tree, you should be producing apples if you say you're a blueberry vine, you should be making blueberries, right? A lot of people are saying that there's something and they're not bearing that fruit. What I mean by that is this, just because you like Cody Sanchez and Alex Hermosi doesn't mean you're a contrarian.

0:16:09 - (Radikal Hughes): And completely honest. If you say you're a contrarian, then fucking make the content. Don't give a fuck about what it looks like. Add massive value. Don't sell for a year. Don't have affiliate marketing for a year. Serve people till you can't serve anymore. That's contrarian.

0:16:26 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah, because I think, well, I want to ask you this before I jump the gun, but what do you think differentiates an influencer versus a creator?

0:16:35 - (Radikal Hughes): I think everybody's an influencer. What are you influencing? Everybody's a creator. We're made creatively. Most, God forbid, people that can't have babies. That's a horrible thing. But there's, you know, most women can have a baby. You're creating. Most women or men can make food. They're creating. You're creating in your relationship, your life is art. How are you creating a beautiful life in your relationship? How are you creating a beautiful life in your own spiritual life? How are you creating a home that your dogs can play around in?

0:17:06 - (Radikal Hughes): We're all creators. Every single one of us has creative ability. You can sing a song, you can create a beautiful story. You can create a beautiful home. You can create the life that you wish and want to create. You are a creator and you are an influencer. Every single one of you is a creator and an influencer. You just don't know it yet. And every single one of you is the NFT. And the content, you just don't know it yet.

0:17:33 - (Radikal Hughes): Nfts. Non fungible token. There's not another you, baby. There's not. Right? So there's one NFT. You are the content. All you have to do is take that cool iPhone that you have, right. Not Android. Cool iPhone.

0:17:45 - (Tawni Nguyen): Excuse you.

0:17:45 - (Radikal Hughes): Okay. And just take the content, right? Just record the content. You are the content.

0:17:52 - (Tawni Nguyen): And this podcast is over because you hate it on Android.

0:17:54 - (Radikal Hughes): Yeah, let's do it.

0:17:55 - (Tawni Nguyen): This is the end of our friendship.

0:17:56 - (Radikal Hughes): Team Apple juice, baby.

0:17:57 - (Tawni Nguyen): This is the end of our friendship.

0:17:58 - (Radikal Hughes): We don't like lemonade, baby. We don't love lemonade, you know?

0:18:03 - (Tawni Nguyen): Okay, so what is something that you're really proud of that no one knows about?

0:18:10 - (Radikal Hughes): That's a really good question. I would say I'm really proud of. Really helping people believe in themselves. You know, I have. I'm known as a finance creator at this point. I'm really not a finance. I create content on finance, but I'm really more than that. My story in a nutshell. I got onto YouTube, tried to make content on content creation. Epic fail, got in another pond, did finance content, blew up in ten months, 100,000 subscribers. Right.

0:18:45 - (Radikal Hughes): And then launched the $2 million coaching business within 24 months. Okay, so that I'm known as the quote unquote credit guy, right? And I'm actually very contrarian because I don't do credit repair and I don't do funding. So most people in credit, they have the 0% business credit cards or they do credit repair, or they're always trying to get back in fees. I literally tell all the game of how that people can get funding themselves.

0:19:04 - (Radikal Hughes): So I lose a lot of revenue by not having those reoccurring models in my business model. So I'm completely contrarian. I've actually created a term for these people called parrots. They're beautiful, but they're fucking annoying, right? And they go for your mom and want to charge them 25% to get a chase card. It's fucking bullshit. I have pretty much either loved or hated in the credit space. But as far as what I'm proud about, I'm helping people realize that they are enough. In my mentorship program, we have a high ticket program.

0:19:38 - (Radikal Hughes): Not pitching it, but I'm just saying in my high ticket program, we have people from the age of 30 to 71 making content for the very first time. And our program launched in January of 2024. Right now we're sitting right by April of 2024. So we're in a 90 day period. 20 of those 36 people have already made 100 videos for the YouTube channel. And they presented in my coaching program. So we're not only helping them create content, we're giving them a platform to be seen and heard. Because most people will teach you, but they won't actually help you implement.

0:20:09 - (Radikal Hughes): Hey, here's a stage for you. Hey. Because making 100 videos helps you know everything about yourself. You start over, you know, going through overcoming limiting beliefs. I'm not pretty enough, I'm not smart enough. Do I sound okay? Do I look okay? Right? That's a big deal. So having 100 at bats helps you get better. You're gonna get better at 100 at bats. So I am really proud about actually helping people believe in themselves. And with my channel, I've had millions of views on my channel. I don't know how much funding I've helped people get for free.

0:20:39 - (Radikal Hughes): So being able to get the funding to keep their business aligned alive during COVID After COVID, I'm really happy about that. And some of the biggest success that people have, they'll never know. They'll never know. You'll never know the type of impact you make. Cause not everybody will tell you, right. They just want the money, and they'll go. Or, you know, they don't know how to tell you. So just because you don't feel that you're making the impact doesn't mean you're not making the impact.

0:21:03 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah. And something with that is there's ghost watchers and there's, like, silent supporters. Right. Just because a lot of people are still afraid of their voice and they don't want the world to see them engage with certain content too doesn't mean that they're not seeing it. That's something I learned the hard way because I've gotten a lot of messages on people that saw my podcast. I'm like. Like, I didn't even know, like, you follow me or whatever. Cause they don't. Yeah, but they're like, hey, I really like this episode. Like, it really helped me when you said this.

0:21:30 - (Radikal Hughes): Yeah.

0:21:31 - (Tawni Nguyen): And I was like, what the fuck? Yeah, but, like, little things like that, like, really shapes my beliefs in that it doesn't really matter who you're creating for. The right people will find you. Right. Because metrics are a vanity, after all. Like you said, right? It looks fancy. We need it. We need it. There's a part of our ego that needs that just to have enough subscribers to be monetizing. But I think in the short term, people fixate on that because the goal is easier than the journey.

0:22:01 - (Tawni Nguyen): Right? So when you shift your identity from creating out of a place of, like, if I can help one person, that's why I'm creating, then that would change everything for me, you know? And I think when you said that's what you're most proud of, is that something you felt like you flocked your whole life, is that someone or nobody believed in you, therefore, now you want to be that person for someone else.

0:22:20 - (Radikal Hughes): That's really good. Good question. I've always believed in myself because of my mom. My mom was my hero. She died of stage four cancer. I preached her funeral. I took care of her. I was her power of attorney. She raised me as a single mom. Like I said, my mom was the ideal mom that I would love to portray because she invested fully in her kid, only child like yourself. She remarried later, had other kids.

0:22:46 - (Radikal Hughes): But moms are everything, right? And so I feel like I was lucky and blessed enough to have a mother that told me I could do everything to the place of delusion. Like, oh, baby, you're the best cook. I can't cook macaroni and cheese. You know what I'm saying? Like, just ridiculous stuff. Right? But I never had a problem with self belief. If anything, it's because I heard that I have it today. So I never struggled that. But what I did, what I did do, where the ego did come into play was everybody say, oh, rad. You can't have a million dollar coaching business or $2 million coaching business without running ads. Never ran an ad in my life. Don't know how to run them, Tawni. You know, tell me somebody that could show me how to do it. We'll do it.

0:23:25 - (Radikal Hughes): Never ran an ad. Didn't do affiliate marketing. People said I couldn't do. This is a beautiful studio here. But, shit, if you go to my old YouTube videos, you'll be like, that's super lo fi, bro. Like, you got cat hair on your shirt. Like, what is this? You really have this many subscribers? Like, it's completely lo fi. But I did that for a reason, to show people I could do it. Right. And I also did it for a reason, so I could tell my students, hey, look at my journey.

0:23:49 - (Radikal Hughes): It's not. Nobody's born a Kardashian, dude. Everybody that acts like they gotta be Vanessa Lau or Tina Lee or all these people on Instagram or YouTube, they don't have to be. Like, you won't be. This is like hours and hours and hours and hours and years and years of doing this shit that nobody sees. Right? So don't compare yourself, because that's. I feel like that's the biggest robbery of joy.

0:24:15 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah. And I think social media kind of minimizes the journey itself, because now people are just trying to imitate the results, but they're not willing to put in the work and the commitment it takes to actually get there. And then they're complaining. They're like, well, I'm not getting the same results. I'm like, okay, you spent three months doing something that someone spent ten years doing. And I know that that's what people sell, right? They sell on emotions. They sell the coaching on. I can get you there faster.

0:24:40 - (Tawni Nguyen): Which to a certain extent, it is true, because that's depending on the coach. Depending on the coach. Depending on whether they see themselves as a mentor, like yourself. Mentor and coaches are different than influencers and gurus, in my opinion.

0:24:51 - (Radikal Hughes): Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:24:52 - (Tawni Nguyen): Just because, oh, buy my blueprint, you'll make $100,000 in your first month. I'm like, okay.

0:24:57 - (Radikal Hughes): And then my toilet paper's better, bro. You know what I'm saying?

0:25:01 - (Tawni Nguyen): But I think when they understand the pain point so well, and most people come from lack of freedom, lack of money, because they come from a place of lack, they don't really understand what fulfillment, scarcity mindset's real. Yeah, yeah.

0:25:12 - (Radikal Hughes): Poverty mindset's real.

0:25:14 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah. And why do you think that's such a big pain point in social media? Is that that's the thing that they're targeting now. They're using freedom as a selling point, right?

0:25:23 - (Radikal Hughes): Yeah. Freedom is the selling point for me, anyway. I think it's a big selling point because people are. Tawni, this is where it comes down to self awareness. People don't know what the fuck they want in life, and they don't know who they are. How many people listening to this podcast? And I want you to actually, DM Tawny, after hearing this, say, that was for me, okay? This right here. How many people are living a life that they're absolutely not happy with?

0:25:47 - (Radikal Hughes): How many of you are with a partner that you're just with because you have to be, whether because you have kids with that person, you can't pay child support or you don't want to go through all of that drama, splitting up for the kids. So maybe you're with a partner you really don't like, don't want to sleep with, not happy with them. Okay? Warm body bed syndrome. Okay. Let's just be very real here, okay? How many people are you guys working a job that you can't stand, and you're saying, one day I'll get out. One day I'll stay, start a business.

0:26:13 - (Radikal Hughes): One day is the biggest lie you'll ever hear in your life. And if you want to keep lying to yourself, you'll keep deceiving yourself. You know what the hardest part about deceit? When people are deceived, they don't even know they're deceived. They think they're living the truth, but they're fucking deceived. And the more that you start lying to yourself, the more deceived you become. The more you start hearing things but never take action, the more deceived you become.

0:26:35 - (Radikal Hughes): And so you have all these people around wearing masks, scared to be themselves deceived, living a life below what they want, and they're wishing and wanting and grasping and trying. And so they're operating out of a place of scarcity because they're so desperate to have what they see on social media when it's not real. And a lot of it's fabricated, right? And a lot of it, you don't even know the full context of.

0:27:03 - (Radikal Hughes): You don't know how many ad dollars that was placed to put in front of you. You don't know how much all this stuff was going on. So I feel that the scarcity is very real, and I feel like people are desperate for change, but most people are not willing to do the hard, deep work that you do to get there. Because to do the hard, deep work, it's fucking scary to lead into pain when you know that it's gonna be so fucking painful to lead into it or break up with this person.

0:27:31 - (Radikal Hughes): I don't know if I'm ready for that. I can't take that in my life right now. But if you don't lean into that pain now, you are lying to yourself and you are wasting your life. And life is but a vapor, dude, I was like, 21, kicking it, like, yesterday. I'm 38, dude, and I got this beanie on my head. Cause my head gets cold. Cause I'm bald now. You know what I'm saying? So it's like, don't waste your beautiful life. Cause you don't know when that DoD is the date of death.

0:28:01 - (Radikal Hughes): The life is made in the dash. The middle life is one in the second quarter, the third quarter, anybody can start the race. Not everybody can finish the race and finish strong. Don't finish with bruises all over your body that you finally got shit together when you were 60 because you have a choice.

0:28:21 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah, I wanted to lean into that.

0:28:23 - (Radikal Hughes): Not too popular.

0:28:23 - (Tawni Nguyen): A little bit more.

0:28:24 - (Radikal Hughes): Not too popular, man.

0:28:26 - (Tawni Nguyen): No, we're not going to be very popular for this conversation. But I was exactly that person, and that's why I had to make the decision. Had to make at 30, right. Because for so long, I was living that life to where I felt like it was my responsibility as a woman. That if the relationship failed, it's because of me. Because everything that I held upon is because I was so masculine in my energies. I was never led properly, right. So I did everything on my own. I had, like, uber superior, like, feminine. What is it called? The alpha feminine trait. That was terrible. Like, I'm like, what kind of man would want to be with this?

0:28:58 - (Tawni Nguyen): You can't, because you can't find a man masculine enough to guide that sort of energy. Right. Until I got my shit together and.

0:29:06 - (Radikal Hughes): Lean into one of those.

0:29:07 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah, man. And I had to lean into that because I watched my mom as a single mom as well, like, supported me as a dad her whole life, and she was also emotionally unavailable that I became unemotionally.

0:29:20 - (Radikal Hughes): Damn. That's right.

0:29:20 - (Tawni Nguyen): Emotionally unavailable. Right. So a lot of my relationships, I found myself in roles that are not supportive, but that are pulling at the wound that I'm the fixer. I just want to fix people. Right.

0:29:35 - (Radikal Hughes): You're the one that needs to be fixed.

0:29:36 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah. So I'm waiting for someone to come rescue me. And then one day I decided I was like, it's either this life's gonna end, or I gotta do something about my shit.

0:29:43 - (Radikal Hughes): Yeah.

0:29:44 - (Tawni Nguyen): So that's the part that we were leaning into. It's like, what does that really take for you to lean into that shadow?

0:29:49 - (Radikal Hughes): Yeah.

0:29:50 - (Tawni Nguyen): Cause that gets thrown around a lot, too.

0:29:52 - (Radikal Hughes): Yeah. I really wanna even, like, throw a guy out. That really helps. And I don't know if you know him. Chris Do. Chris Do said, every influencer, content creator needs a therapist because so many people are broken and hurt trying to lead people to a place that they've never been to themselves or not willing to go themselves. Christo is the go dopest. Dopest. I love him. But that's real, right? Like, we have to, like, deal with our trauma. And you know what's really cool?

0:30:20 - (Radikal Hughes): When you're transparent? Say, hey, guys, listen, man, I'm not. I'm not fucking feeling it right now. I love you guys, though. You build a. Actually. You actually build a relationship with your audience by just being real. If I'm off, just pray for me. Just send me a note. Like, now you're having people understand, hey, I'm human, right? Like, that rawness, that realness. Hey, I'm just like you. Like, I think that the new economy, the creator economy, web three, there is a space and a place for every single person to be 1000% them.

0:30:54 - (Radikal Hughes): We don't need any more, you know, fakes. We don't need any more filters. We don't need any more of this shit. We need you to step up and be you and learn you. And when you learn, you discover, you, celebrate you. You bring something to the world that nobody else has to offer. Nobody else has your fingerprint. Ever ask the authorities? Nobody has your fingerprint, right? No. Snowflake is the same. Snowflake.

0:31:23 - (Radikal Hughes): Like, you got to really understand how original you are. Like, there is enough in you for this world. You just have to dig into it and say, what do I want? Who do I want to serve, and how do I want to show up?

0:31:39 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah. Why? So, you know, that really resonates with me. The not enoughness. Right? Because I feel like it's like a mass disease.

0:31:49 - (Radikal Hughes): Because it's cultural too.

0:31:50 - (Tawni Nguyen): I think it's cultural because as asian descent, I love shout outs to all.

0:31:54 - (Radikal Hughes): My asian fam out there. Hopefully I get more asian followers because of you. Just letting you know. Hey, please, I love Asians. Let's. Let's go. Asian vibe. Let's go.

0:32:03 - (Tawni Nguyen): Dude, you're practically asian in a white man. I'm caught asian.

0:32:06 - (Radikal Hughes): Yeah. So the caught in the asian. Yeah. So I'm part asian. Yeah. Got a baby asian girl coming, so, yes, I am in the dark.

0:32:14 - (Tawni Nguyen): I'll vouch for that.

0:32:15 - (Radikal Hughes): Yeah, yeah, yeah. 100%.

0:32:17 - (Tawni Nguyen): No, I think it's just a cultural, like, societal disease that programs us to not feel enough. And coming from being asian, it's like we were only praised. No, that's the wrong choice of word. We were never praised. And that's probably why all of us should be in therapy. We were.

0:32:36 - (Radikal Hughes): You are a legend. You are a legend. You are a legend that the whole world will know one day. You are amazing.

0:32:43 - (Tawni Nguyen): But what the fuck was I saying?

0:32:46 - (Radikal Hughes): Yeah, I just praised you and you.

0:32:48 - (Tawni Nguyen): Lost your train of thought. See, I'm not used to receiving compliments. You see, this is what happens.

0:32:52 - (Radikal Hughes): No, yeah, I get it.

0:32:54 - (Tawni Nguyen): I go back to avoiding.

0:32:55 - (Radikal Hughes): Yeah, no, I get it. I get it. I understand. It's cool. I receive it. But you said people, you said, that's why we need therapists, because we can't take compliments.

0:33:03 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah, okay. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So I think it's a disease as a society because we were just groomed to be what people need out of us. Right. Because as asian, you have to go a certain way to be accepted. And I know that for me, I dropped out of college at 18. I barely made it out of high school. I was, like, high all the time. Right? But I had to do it because my parents, they found out later on that I didn't have a college degree. I went back at 26. But the paradox in which I live is that I dropped out of college at 18, and then I graduated college at 30, but I graduated magna cum laude, and I was like, what the fuck is that? Like, I didn't believe it because I'm like, am I dumb?

0:33:39 - (Tawni Nguyen): Like, the whole entire. Like, my entire life, I thought I was dumb, but then I realized I'm like, I wasn't trying. I never tried. And then when I tried, I became someone that I hated so much in my 20 that now my journey is like, how do I build a life that I actually enjoy waking up to? And that's my success now, right? It's that when I used to wake up, I'm like, what does it feel like if I don't wake up?

0:34:03 - (Tawni Nguyen): And that's the kind of pain that you don't want other people to feel, is that they're chasing the success that they think they have to have. The money, the career, the relationship. I was in a seven fucking year relationship. I was miserable ass shit, dude. I'm right here with you, twin sister.

0:34:18 - (Radikal Hughes): Right here, bro.

0:34:18 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah. I didn't know myself then either. So all those lessons that.

0:34:22 - (Radikal Hughes): Why did you have a seven year relationship?

0:34:25 - (Tawni Nguyen): I think I was just so disconnected from myself that I disassociated from myself. Cause I was also an alcoholic. So I chose numbing and I chose to avoid all the parts that could have possibly potentially connected me to the person. Like, we were just at such a disconnect, like two to three years in that it became a comfort. Right? You said the warm bed syndrome. It's that when my mom started getting sick, the years that I was about to let the relationship go, I didn't have the tools to cope with exiting another relationship. Because at that age, as an asian woman, you're supposed to be married.

0:35:00 - (Tawni Nguyen): I was not. Like, I was still going to college, right? So that comparison syndrome kind of fucked me up because I'm like, wow, I'm way behind in all these people.

0:35:08 - (Radikal Hughes): But you sound like you were kind of contrarian in the asian world.

0:35:11 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah, so. And it's fucking funny, right? And I looked at it, I'm like, was I ever really happy? And that was the hardest question that I had to sit down and ask myself. And I asked myself that every single day for three years. And I couldn't answer it because I was living the lie. I was like, I should be happy because I had all these things, but I'm not. Why is that? All my friends were fake. You know, all my friends were bought. As long as I'm paying for their shit, as long as I'm taking these fake vacations and taking photos whenever the fuck they want, like living as a puppet, I should be fine.

0:35:43 - (Tawni Nguyen): But I had zero personal connection to anyone. And that sort of loneliness kind of led me to a path to where I'm like, whatever my success looks like in my 30, I just don't want to wake up with that feeling anymore. Right. So now when I wake up, I'm like, huh? Like, what does Tawni want to do today? And that peace of mind, I feel like it's my sense of freedom, right. Because literally, it doesn't have to do with money, but money gives you the ability not to deal with people's shit.

0:36:07 - (Radikal Hughes): Yeah. I don't know how many people. You can change lives if you don't have money. Yeah, money's, you know, I can pray for you. I can feed you. But at end of the day, you may need some money. You may need some money to get your message out, you know? Money for the mission, not mission being your money.

0:36:21 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah. Ooh.

0:36:22 - (Radikal Hughes): Money for the mission, not mission being your money. People over profit. Not profit before people.

0:36:27 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah.

0:36:29 - (Radikal Hughes): I love Buddhism in a sense, because the detachment is a big deal. Right. Like, you have to detach from the end result. Right? Like, when you're talking about showing up as your full self, it should be the same in a podcast room. It should be the same at a casino dinner. It should be the same. You should be the same on camera. Off camera. Oh, wow. You're the same. Yeah. Fucker. I'm the same person.

0:36:53 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah.

0:36:53 - (Radikal Hughes): Right. Because when you're walking in your purpose, you don't give a fuck what people think. Yeah. It hurts you when there's trolls. Yeah. You get discouraged at times. Yes. You second guess yourself at times. But when you're walking in your purpose, man, you're just fucking the shit out of your dream.

0:37:07 - (Tawni Nguyen): Oh, yeah.

0:37:08 - (Radikal Hughes): I don't know how many people haven't, you know? Listen, I'll be a little explicit. I don't know how many people making some fucking great sex and just thinking about, oh, my God, should I stop now? No. Fucking go hard. Go in. Right? Enjoy life. Don't worry about all the other side shit. Worry about people. Go where you're celebrated, not where you're tolerated. Go where you're celebrated, not where you. If people are tolerating you, those are not your people.

0:37:31 - (Radikal Hughes): If people are celebrating you, they may look different than you, sound different than you. Oh, I can't believe these people follow me. They celebrate you. That's where your favor is. That's where your provision is. That's where your breakthrough is. Stop thinking and start doing.

0:37:46 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah, bro.

0:37:47 - (Radikal Hughes): Don't get me going.

0:37:48 - (Tawni Nguyen): Damn. No, I love this energy that we're able to have because I feel like a lot of conversations gets lost because, first of all, I was on this other podcast that what they wanted me to talk about was trending topics. They're like, these are trending today. Can we talk about it?

0:38:03 - (Radikal Hughes): They want to go viral.

0:38:04 - (Tawni Nguyen): And I'm like, all right, that's cool, but should I do some research? And that makes me feel very mass produced, because then I'm like, what are my original thoughts on this? Right. Like, we don't have an. Like, there's no originality when you become someone that. Okay, fake people loves other fake people.

0:38:20 - (Radikal Hughes): Yeah.

0:38:20 - (Tawni Nguyen): And that was why I was very comfortable saying, like, I was fucking fake, because I was very. I was tolerating a lot of people because I was an alcoholic. But now that I'm sober, everyone is so fucking boring. The people that I used to hang out with, I'm like, what did I find in these people? And there's no offense to that. It's just I've outgrown them so fucking hard that I'm like, wow, that was like, I should have walked a long time ago.

0:38:42 - (Radikal Hughes): You outgrow people. Yeah. And the more you stay when you outgrow something, have you ever worn clothes that you outgrew? It's not feeling good.

0:38:49 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah. You know, I didn't practice what I preached. Like, the whole detachment thing, it's big. Yeah. Like, I think I masked that with positivity. Like, this whole toxic positivity thing. I was one of those people. Like, let's look. Let's look at the brighter side. But it's not because I'm actively avoiding going into the pain to do the work.

0:39:11 - (Radikal Hughes): Yeah.

0:39:11 - (Tawni Nguyen): Right.

0:39:11 - (Radikal Hughes): And that's why you're great, because you're willing to do that. And that's why everything now in your life is going to be better and bigger and more clear and more transparent is because you're willing to do that work, man. Like, kudos to you for doing that work. If there's anything that success, to me, is doing the work to be fully human and fully yourself and being fully okay with that. You know, I have a daughter on the way. She'll be here in August. Maybe this podcast will be out by then. I don't know.

0:39:37 - (Radikal Hughes): I'm doing the inner work right now, so I don't pass on what I'm gonna call the sins of the father, meaning my insecurities, meaning my different vices that I'm not proud about, or the things that, like, I could be doing better about. I wanna have the most amazing, healthy relationship with my daughter. I want to be known for being a dad that raised a world changer. Like, that's my little girl, man, when I found out I was having a little girl, I'm like, this is it, man.

0:40:10 - (Radikal Hughes): I could throw it all away, start the rad dad podcast, and just be happy with just celebrating and making that little girl my mission in life. And I think we're losing the place in society where we value our family and we value ourself. I know I come from a religious background, and so I would see pastors all the time try to have the latest book or the latest conference, and they would neglect their families, man, and they would cheat on their wives, and their kids would have no connection with them.

0:40:41 - (Radikal Hughes): And most people that were quote unquote pastors kids would be the biggest devils in the world because they never had their dad, man. Your dad wants to give to all these people, but not give to me. So I just don't want to be that person, man. Like, you know, I don't need to be famous. I know it brings more attention, it brings more problems, it brings more drama. Like, nowadays, I think your mental health is super important.

0:41:04 - (Radikal Hughes): I think that you need to be very clear on what you want, because you've heard the term said, be careful what you wish for. You can get it, and you will get it. And some of you guys will regret getting it, and you'll regret building the business that you built, because you didn't build it authentically, and you didn't build it with the people that you want to do business with. Build businesses that you want to do, buy businesses that you want to have, have customers that you want to serve.

0:41:27 - (Radikal Hughes): Don't have boundaries here. Don't just be living like a prostitute looking for money and the shout outs to all of my prostitutes out there. Most of us are prostitutes by doing shit for money that we don't want to do right. And it just takes real ones, man, to just take a step back and just say, hey, this is not success. This is not happiness. My happiness comes in living a beautiful life, and then whatever's next.

0:41:53 - (Tawni Nguyen): Mm hmm.

0:41:54 - (Radikal Hughes): Yeah. What is happiness to you? What's happiness to you?

0:41:58 - (Tawni Nguyen): What's happiness to me is having the solitude of being okay by myself.

0:42:06 - (Radikal Hughes): It's cool, man.

0:42:07 - (Tawni Nguyen): That's true happiness.

0:42:08 - (Radikal Hughes): That's so cool. It's hard, like, lonely. It's okay to be alone. It's not okay to be lonely.

0:42:14 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah.

0:42:15 - (Radikal Hughes): And people mix that up all the time. Like you actually, it's healthy to be alone, but it's not healthy to be lonely.

0:42:20 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah. Especially when you're in the relationships and had a lot of friends.

0:42:23 - (Radikal Hughes): Yep, yep, yep. And so I just, you know, if you're in a place where you're, like, isolated right now, cool. But, like, don't stay there. Like, you. You need to know yourself, okay? It's time to be around people now. It's time to, like. Because people also, like, energy attracts energy. Right? Like, this conversation is doing something for me. It's doing something for you. We're not gonna be able to get that if we're alone.

0:42:45 - (Radikal Hughes): We'll be able to get other things that make us great. But there's a time and a place to exchange energy and iron, sharpen iron, and, like, really help each other be better. I feel like relationship's a mirror of who you are, what you need to work on, what you're good at. It's a mirror. That's why I love my relationship, is because I'm like, damn, I didn't know I had an issue with this. Let me work on it. You know, it exposes you.

0:43:11 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah. And I think my other favorite thing about myself is that where we can trigger people, and I think our gift of triggering people is showing them directly the fucking mirror. Right? Because, like, when I first met you, they're like, we're the kind of people to where you either hate us or love us.

0:43:30 - (Radikal Hughes): I love them.

0:43:31 - (Tawni Nguyen): We don't want the middle ground.

0:43:32 - (Radikal Hughes): I don't want the middle. Do you like lukewarm coffee? Hot or cold, bitch? Let's go.

0:43:36 - (Tawni Nguyen): Exactly. Like, as long as I'm living in gratitude, like, every cup of coffee I have is going to be the greatest one of my life. And that's the energy I want to carry into my relationship, my friendships with people in my intimate relationships, whatever it may be. Like, this is the best I'm gonna give it. Right? Because I don't want that fucking lukewarm sentiment.

0:43:52 - (Radikal Hughes): Nobody wants that shit.

0:43:53 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah.

0:43:54 - (Radikal Hughes): I don't want to spend my time with people that are gossiping about me or hate me, because they will. I want people that fucking love me or hate me. And, like, that's scary because you will get a lot of hate. Like, when you're that person. Like, they'll call you everything tawny, but it's you. You have to get in a place where you just are okay with the. If you're not creating that hate, you won't have that. That opposite effect is all as well.

0:44:17 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah. No, I want to acknowledge you to circle back to your daughter. I've been sitting with that since you've said it.

0:44:23 - (Radikal Hughes): Right.

0:44:23 - (Tawni Nguyen): Because I didn't grow up with a father role right. Child divorce as well. So I guess we do have a lot of similarities.

0:44:30 - (Radikal Hughes): Yeah, we do, man.

0:44:30 - (Tawni Nguyen): And the pain we've carried in most of our life. And I don't know why it isn't said more in society that the dad plays a really important role in terms of how these girls grow up. Not to throw daddy issues in there, but it's.

0:44:45 - (Radikal Hughes): No, it's real.

0:44:46 - (Tawni Nguyen): It's a real thing because there's a lack of real masculine energy to show her where the boundaries are, where the standards are on how she should operate her life and take shit from nobody.

0:44:56 - (Radikal Hughes): Yeah. Yeah.

0:44:56 - (Tawni Nguyen): You know?

0:44:57 - (Radikal Hughes): Yeah. I'm a man that believes a woman can do anything, and I want to empower my daughter to be that. And I think that there is something really beautiful about femininity and that looks different for different people. But I think men need to grow the fuck up. I think men need to be men of their word. There's a word in New York, word is bond. It's hip hop language. Your word should be your bond. Your word should be enough.

0:45:17 - (Radikal Hughes): We have so many men walking in a lack of integrity, cheating on the girls, like, saying one thing and then fucking around. Right? We got so many men out here throwing words like integrity around when they don't even know what the fuck that means. Like, we need men to be men. And that's what, I have a very masculine role, but I have a very, like, empathetic feminine energy, too. Where I was raised by women, I love women. I appreciate women. I want to see women make it and succeed.

0:45:46 - (Radikal Hughes): I also love the immigrant. I love the underdog. And so all of these aspects for me, man, I'm just like. I'm really hard on men because I need men to be men. And that could be very controversial. But I need men to lead and guide and comfort and provide and do a lot of these things that aren't happening in society today. You find this more in third world countries, which I appreciate. But we need men to step up in their role and be men and love their partner and provide, and not just money, but provide time, energy, emotion. We need men to tap into the sensitive side of and to give hugs and to open doors and to serve the homeless and to just be fully masculine.

0:46:38 - (Radikal Hughes): It's so much in that masculinity role, but we need men to be men. I'm just gonna put it that way.

0:46:45 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah, I agree with you with american being a place of rugged individualism, which fucks so many people up, especially with social media rough, and that it's success is achieved alone when you're the lone wolf.

0:46:58 - (Radikal Hughes): Yeah, man. And we're not meant to live alone.

0:47:02 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah. So tell me a little bit more about your love of asian. Asian culture, asian people. And I feel like your sense of identity and identifying with the cultural difference between how success is achieved in other countries versus here in America.

0:47:17 - (Radikal Hughes): Yeah. I'll speak specifically to asian culture because I experience a lot of different cultures, but asian culture, I live, as of right now, I live part time in Jakarta, Indonesia. Okay, so that's one of the largest cities in the world. Indonesia is the largest muslim population in the world. And in Asia specifically, what I appreciate is it's very different than the west in the sense of individualism.

0:47:40 - (Radikal Hughes): Here, it's cool to be individual as long as you're not fucking up the vibe in the community. Right. So in Asia, it's very communal focused, and it's about the overall society and how things are being done and portrayed. One of the other things that I really like about that is because it's not all about you. And I think that's a big learning lesson for America, is that it cannot be all about you. There's good in that and there's bad in that. I appreciate the communal atmosphere of living in Asia. The other thing I really appreciate about Asia is just the hospitality. It's amazing.

0:48:16 - (Radikal Hughes): The food's fire. Food's fire. And then I also really appreciate the. If there's one word that I put on Asians is excellence. Now, that's a two part thing, right? Like, a lot of people find their identity in doing or performing, right? But that bar is so high of excellence and just crushing it. And, dude, like, I don't know if you've seen it, but, like, you know, chinese restaurants are open on Christmas in America, bro. It's still open. You know, like, the work ethic is crazy.

0:48:48 - (Radikal Hughes): Like, there is so much beautiful things, spiritually, society wise. Like, I love it. And I really appreciate. I've been all over Thailand. I've been all over Indonesia. I love the Philippines. I'm excited to go to your homeland of Vietnam. Just a lot of places I've spent all over in Asia. And I just really appreciate overall, I always tell people all the time, the future is Asia, and they don't like when I say that. But the future in business and finance, and I'm telling you right now, the asian countries, too, the s e a n.

0:49:26 - (Radikal Hughes): I feel like we're getting in a time of age with web three and creators, where all of this, you see all the vas, right. Philippines. Right. But you also have Indonesia and you have Kuala Lumpur and Malaysia. And all of these asian countries are about to shock the world in the. You're going to see a huge wealth transfer come right over to the east, and you're going to see these countries dominate. They have massive populations, they have massive amounts of resources, and people are sleeping on Asia. As far as people investing in real estate, I think you. I mean, create businesses, create partnerships, get land in Asia. Obviously, there's a lot of laws around owning land if you're a foreigner. But, for example, in Malaysia, you can have the second home program if you invest money in. In Malaysia, you can actually own property, being a foreigner and have residency in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, or anywhere in Malaysia. So Malaysia is one of these places where, you know, the homes are really grand outside. If you go to Japan, it's really small. Korea is very small.

0:50:25 - (Radikal Hughes): It's huge places. It's very affordable. Malaysia is a hub for international business with the arab world and the asian world coming together. It's centrally located. It's an amazing place. It's a place that I'm actually looking at investing right now.

0:50:39 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah, I want to follow up with that after this because.

0:50:43 - (Radikal Hughes): Yeah, you're kind of a real estate girl. A little. Yeah.

0:50:46 - (Tawni Nguyen): That's why I was like, tell me more about what I don't know.

0:50:48 - (Radikal Hughes): Because Malaysia is amazing.

0:50:49 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah, yeah. Malaysia, I think that is something that I do want to add to my calendar this year.

0:50:55 - (Radikal Hughes): Okay.

0:50:56 - (Tawni Nguyen): Is towards the end of the year. Hopefully the calendar, the businesses checks out is because I no longer want to take vacations. I didn't learn that until I two years ago. So I've been taking vacations my whole life.

0:51:06 - (Radikal Hughes): With coconuts in your hands and.

0:51:08 - (Tawni Nguyen): No, to escape the fucking life that I hate so much now to where I have a little bit more financial flexibility and freedom.

0:51:15 - (Radikal Hughes): Yeah, that's cool, right?

0:51:16 - (Tawni Nguyen): Like, now I just want to travel, book a one way ticket, and do where the fuck I want. We can afford to now. And we're like, what I'm. What am I not doing with my adult money besides trapping myself in producing more money.

0:51:28 - (Radikal Hughes): Yeah.

0:51:28 - (Tawni Nguyen): And stacking more assets, which is fucking fantastic. But I'm not living the life I truly want, and I've always been afraid to. Right. Because we never look at. I never looked at it like, oh, I'm gonna go back to where I came from, which is fucking Vietnam. But when I went back there, I'm like, why the fuck not? I'm so much more wealthier here.

0:51:46 - (Radikal Hughes): You know, you'll probably really appreciate it. Like, it's a beautiful country full of beautiful people. I'm sure you'll discover a lot about your background and yourself. You should definitely do it.

0:51:55 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah, no, I just want to acknowledge you for showing up just fucking in you today, you know? Appreciate you. And is there anything else that you want to share with us?

0:52:06 - (Radikal Hughes): I would just say you are enough. Be radical. Be you. Be okay with you. You're the person that has to live with yourself for the rest of your life. Everything. All hell can break loose in your life, but you're still with yourself. So do the work. Listen to the frugal podcast. Hang out with Tawni. She'll get you there. I also want to tell you how amazing it is that you've been through what you've been through that I have no clue about, which we're going to find out on the next podcast.

0:52:33 - (Radikal Hughes): But I want to tell you, amazing job at doing the hard fucking work of dealing with your demons and all of the dumb shit that's happened to you that you had no control over. And you should be so fucking proud of yourself that you're not 50 dealing with it. You're 34. You got your whole life ahead of you. You're about to change your world, your man's world, everything going around. Like, you are a rock star, right? And you are enough. So I'm excited to see you step into your contrarian feminine power and just fucking take this shit over, man.

0:53:07 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah, no, thank you. Appreciate you on this journey.

0:53:09 - (Radikal Hughes): Yeah, yeah.

0:53:10 - (Tawni Nguyen): Well, guys, that's. Where can you find me? I was like, I'm about to change my Instagram name to my real name. So by the time this comes out, it's either still Tawnisaurus or Tawni Nguyen. But anyways, you can find me on fit and frugal pod. You can find rad on Radikal Hughes. Yeah.

0:53:28 - (Radikal Hughes): Yeah. Radikal Hughes on Instagram. Or the Radikal Marketer podcast as well.

0:53:31 - (Tawni Nguyen): I just want to thank you guys for showing up with us and listening and just growing with me as a person. If you haven't done so, like, and subscribe, all that good stuff, right? Because as creators, we do need that. A little bit of social validation to make me feel seen, you know?

0:53:47 - (Radikal Hughes): And when you watch this podcast on YouTube, to go ahead and leave a comment for Tawni and let her know your biggest takeaway from the episode.

0:53:54 - (Tawni Nguyen): Aw, thank you.

0:53:55 - (Radikal Hughes): Gotcha. Engagement. Engagement.