 in the book you mentioned that the kindness shown to you from minorities, people of color was really like another part of like the the persistent kind of re-educating that it required to get you to flip the switch. You mentioned the black lady at breakfast right and that was such a such a powerful can you maybe we'll start on that. Yeah. Well in McDonald's? Yes. Yeah. It's a great story and it definitely to me it's an example of the power of kindness. So early on in my white power days because I'm a gifted genius I thought it'd be clever to get a swastika tattooed on the middle finger of my right hand which has since been covered up. By the way Nick do you know who covered that up? Was it Chris? Chris Buckley. Gotta love it. I do want to touch on him eventually. We will for sure. So I had this swastika on my middle finger and just to paint the picture like I am this like stinking drunk lanky tattooed and scarred shaved head neo nazi skinhead. I got swastika tattooed on me. I typically had scars everywhere stitches in my head like big swastikas on my jacket. There was no no one would have been like oh maybe he's a racist like I'm clearly a racist it was very very plain and there was a McDonald's I went into and I at this point I was I existed on ramen noodles and not like good you know artesian ramen like they got at Silver Lake ramen. It was like the bricks the 10 for a dollar ramen and it was just something that filled my stomach and that's what I ate all week long to so I had more drinking money but one day a week on payday I would go to McDonald's and I'd get a Big Mac and that was like the only thing I ate all week that wasn't ramen noodles and it was I'd all week long I'm looking forward to that Big Mac and I it never occurred to my gifted genius self that maybe if I didn't drink so much I could have ate Big Macs more often I don't know which would have been worse for me but in any case I go into this McDonald's to get my Big Mac and behind the counter is this elderly black woman working there taking orders and I froze in the doorway because she had this beautiful smile on her face that was so genuine and so like unconditional for everybody I liken it to the sun in the sense that the sun shines on everyone doesn't care what color your skin is how much money you got don't God who you love who you don't love who you vote for like the sun just shines and that's how her smile was and it made me really really uncomfortable because I'm trying to hate black people and here's this sweet genuine old lady like making that seem as stupid as it is so I go get my food I scurry out of there next week payday I come back to the same McDonald's it was right next to the place where I cashed my check and she's there again and this time she recognizes me and she remembered what I ordered she's asking me about my day and I'm all the more uncomfortable now this is like fucking with my whole program so again I get my food and I scurry out of there the next week goes by and in between these visits is when I got the swastika tattoo so the third time I go back to this McDonald's the third payday now I have the swastika tattoo and I specifically got it to enrage people like I wanted to hurt people at the sight of it and then if they wanted to do something about it I closed my fist and I physically hurt them like that was why I got that tattoo and I certainly was not thinking of the sweet gentle black lady who worked at McDonald's when I got the tattoo but when I walked tried to walk into that door I literally froze in the doorway again and I just had this almost like instinctive thought I'm just like I don't want her to see this and I put my hand in my back pocket and I'm just like what doesn't it be else work here like I'm waiting for seeing somebody else comes up there nobody does I'm thinking like where's the next closest McDonald's it's December it's freezing and I'm hungry and I'm like okay I'm just going to keep my hand in my pocket she won't see it so I go up there and I didn't occur to me that it's pretty difficult to reach in your pocket to get a bill with without showing the back of your hand and despite my best effort she sees the tattoo and she just says like my grandma used to say to me when I she'd catch me beating on my little brother she was just kind of like what is that on your finger and I couldn't look her in the eye I just like looked down at my steel-toed skin had boots and I'm just sitting there and I'm like it's nothing and she waited until I looked up again and when I did look up our eyes met and she just said I know that's not who you are you're a better person than that and I was like guys my big man please and I got my food and I scurried out of there and I would love to say that I went skipping out of McDonald's going racism stupid she's so nice like glad that's done but I actually I went home I got as drunk as I could as fast as I could I went out the streets and I attacked the first person I could find because I wanted to put as much space between me and this like singularity of humanity that I experienced as I possibly could but the thing about human experience is and this is why people like my friend party can make a living in mental health is that we can't subtract things from our experience once something happens to us it's there and we can't just remove it we can't pretend it never happened all we could do is process it and deal with it and I it was all I could do to not process that act of kindness to not deal with it and for seven years this happened like within my first couple months of being a skin for seven years that experience was part of me and I despite my best efforts to rip out that seed that she had planted it took root and it grew alongside other seeds of kindness that I was so fortunate to experience and it left less and less room in my heart for the kind of hate that it takes to hate people and so it took seven years to get to the point where I'm like I can't do this anymore I gotta change and that woman's kindness was an integral part of the exhaustion that led me to that point hey everyone thanks for checking out that clip if you enjoyed it be sure to hit the like button down below and if you're interested in hearing the full episode it's out right now on our youtube channel we've had a lot of great guests come on this show before and we've got a lot of great guests coming up in the future so hit subscribe so that you don't miss a single episode and one final note we're always looking for new ideas and new companies feature on the show so if you know of someone or know of a company write us a comment down below letting us know who they are and what they do we'd be happy to have them on the show till then I'll just be here waiting for your comments so uh see you later