EP 52 | ATTACKED BY CHIMPS & LIVING TO FIND LOVE: TREY HUMPHREYS
Episode Summary
This episode features Kevin’s friend Trey Humphreys!
Trey is all about human connection and the power this has to change lives. He started sharing his thoughts through a blog and got so much support, he kept doing it. He’s also had an entrepreneurial journey since his college years going through deejaying at bars and even owning one. He also shares his admiration for Tony Robbins and how influential he’s been in his life. He also shares how he’s helping men get comfortable being vulnerable through his company The Exchange.
Tune in to this episode and dive deep into being a man and vulnerable at the same time.
About the Guest - Trey Humphreys
Trey Humphreys has a track record of creating unforgettable experiences designed to facilitate meaningful connections. Through his experience serving as the mascot for Auburn University and The Atlanta Falcons, Trey learned how to hone his communication skills. By being unable to use his voice while “on duty”, he learned how to find unique ways to get people to feel comfortable around him. This skill has served him well in his roles as founder of the Fur Bus, DJ, bar owner, event producer, and coach.
Trey’s genuine interest in other people and their stories has resulted in a coaching certification, podcast, blog, and travel to 35 countries. Throughout his travels, he has conducted thousands of interviews about connections. He released his first book, Love Is Bananas, in 2020 and is currently working on his second one.
Key Take-Aways
When we are younger we see things as normal, whereas when we grow up we start seeing the toxic patterns we’ve had our whole life.
Everyone needs a role model.
Writing is a great way to purge yourself from situations and feelings.
Some men are truly uncomfortable talking about their feelings.
Resources
EP 52_TREY HUMPHREYS: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix
EP 52_TREY HUMPHREYS: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Kevin Hines:
My name is Kevin Hines. I jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge. I believe that I had to die, but I lived. Today, I travel the world with my lovely wife, Margaret, sharing stories of people who have triumphed over incredible adversity. Now, we help people be here tomorrow. Welcome to the HINESIGHTS podcast.
Kevin Hines:
Hello. Oh! Mr.?
Trey Humphreys:
Mr. ...
Kevin Hines:
Mr. ... That's his nickname. Hi, Trey Humphreys.
Trey Humphreys:
Hi, how are you?
Kevin Hines:
How are you? Good to see you, brother! What's going on?
Trey Humphreys:
Nothing. I'm excited to be here in the studio.
Kevin Hines:
One of my two friends in our new home, Atlanta, Georgia, this is great, Mr. Humphries, I've got a lot of questions for you, sir.
Trey Humphreys:
Well, let's see what happens!
Kevin Hines:
Let's see what happens.
Trey Humphreys:
Roll with it and see what happens.
Kevin Hines:
I want to get right into the nitty-gritty. What the hell happened in Zambia?
Trey Humphreys:
Well, I was actually in Zambia working on building some schools, actually, for some kids in this conservation project at one of the largest chimpanzee refuges in the whole world. And so we're there for a couple of weeks helping build the schools, and I got to interact once in a while with these chimpanzees, and I was doing a bushwalk with three of the chimpanzees and one of the guys that was supposed to be in charge of said chimpanzees who had basically a stick, and that's it. It was, it was kind of sketchy, but we're walking along in the second we turn the corner and we were away from the one dude who's in charge, all three chimpanzees attacked me at the same time. So one grabs my foot, start trying to pull me into the woods. Another one jumps my back. I mean, this is lickety-split. The fastest thing that's ever happened to me my whole life. And prior to this, they had told me, if anything happens, don't resist it, there's nothing you can do because these things are a lot stronger than you are, just.
Kevin Hines:
Can they crush your skull with their fingers?
Trey Humphreys:
They can, yeah, they can crush the whole world with their two fingers. So finally, the little guy let go of my foot and I was like, OK. And then he grabs and I was wearing camouflage pants. He grabbed my pants, wham, ripped them clean off, and now I'm shaking, standing there, and then the guy came around the corner and they just lined up and just kept walking like nothing could happen. And there I am, no pants, shaking in the middle of the forest.
Kevin Hines:
Chimpanzees.
Trey Humphreys:
Yeah.
Kevin Hines:
I mean .....
Trey Humphreys:
They look at you like this, they're like, they know exactly what's going on, and they're like, I can attack at any time. But, you know, give me some food basically is what happens. So it was good being here, we'll see you next time.
Kevin Hines:
What? What was the lesson learned? Was there? Was there a lesson learned?
Trey Humphreys:
Uh, well.
Kevin Hines:
What do we, what do we take away from this.
Trey Humphreys:
Don't hang out with chimpanzees, but yeah, they're smarter than we are, and they're stronger than we are. Lots of bad comedies.
Kevin Hines:
Well, that's fair enough. You were born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia.
Trey Humphreys:
Born and raised.
Kevin Hines:
Right? Tell me about being raised in the south.
Trey Humphreys:
Being raised in the south. So yeah, I was born and raised here in Atlanta, Georgia. My parents were from the South and it was kind of fun, but it's boring when you live in the same place your whole life, I think. Well, it's not boring, it's good. You need connection, grow your friends, and all that stuff. But for me, it was, my dad was an alcoholic when I was growing up, so he was kind of out of the picture. He was in the picture enough to cause problems and then out of the picture, and so I was an only child growing up. And so my dad was like, this is a superhero, right? He was my, my whole world, and when he was sober and on point, he was the most charming man in the world. And then when he wasn't, it was just like a whole different person, so I had a lot of that chaos. And my mom's amazing. She did the best she could and got us through. So, you know, looking back when I was going through it, it was like, everything's normal, right? I just thought it was normal. But now I can see some of the patterns I developed. When I was growing up, you know, built some walls, are we supposed to go this deep this quick? I don't know.
Kevin Hines:
We want to get into the depth of your story. We want to know what, what makes you, what makes you tick, what makes you the person you are?
Trey Humphreys:
Yeah.
Kevin Hines:
So why not? Let's get into it if you, if you're, if you're comfortable ....
Trey Humphreys:
Yeah, sure. No problem. Yeah. So you know, for me, growing up, my dad back to him, he was a super entrepreneur and my mom was raised in South Alabama, so and her parents were like depression folks. So she's kind of tied on the money and a little hesitant, a little fearful. So I have this mix of super entrepreneur-take risk dad and mom save, save, save, save, save, worry, worry, worry, and I'm right in the middle. So it was an interesting upbringing, but there's a lot of fun. I've become a creative person, which is fun.
Kevin Hines:
And in that creativity, you have two bars and a restaurant, could you talk about them? We give them a plug, what's it like to eat there? What's like the?
Trey Humphreys:
Yeah. So you know, it's a little bit about my story. I was, I went to school in Auburn College, that got me nowhere because I graduated with a zoology degree, right? Because I want to be a vet, I want to go to vet school.
Kevin Hines:
I want to help those chimpanzees.
Trey Humphreys:
Yeah, I want to help chimpanzees, I want to be with all the animals and then the vet school look at my grades and they were like, maybe not, maybe you don't come in our school. So I got denied vet school twice. And so I graduated with a zoology degree which gets you nowhere, for me. I interned at the Atlanta Zoo here in town, where I took care of the gorillas, fed them and cleaned after them and cleaned after them and cleaned up. Which was a really killer experience and then got out of school, and when I was in college, I was a mascot. Do you know what a mascot is?
Kevin Hines:
I do.
Trey Humphreys:
Ok.
Kevin Hines:
That was my next question.
Trey Humphreys:
Do they have mascots in Australia?
Kevin Hines:
Tell you what?
Trey Humphreys:
Australia.
Trey Humphreys:
Let's ask the registered Australian producers that while I'm there.
Trey Humphreys:
You know, whatever. Ok, great. So you don't even know.
Kevin Hines:
What is the costume you were wearing? I need to know.
Trey Humphreys:
I was the.
Kevin Hines:
Oh, by the way, we have a picture we put up on the screen.
Trey Humphreys:
Yeah, I think so, I think so.
Kevin Hines:
All right. Thanks. What is the costume you were wearing?
Trey Humphreys:
In college, I was a tiger, I was a tiger, which is basically a thousand pounds of carpet with eye holes, where you can breathe about this, this wide. So it would get to about one hundred and ninety degrees in that costume. And you know, I was really skinny, which still am, and sweat and all that stuff. So when I graduated from college, oh man, what am I going to do? I didn't get to vet school, I got to get a job. My first job out of college was at a pet shop, which is super weird. And then I started calling pro teams like professional baseball, professional cup or professional football, any of the pro teams if I, they would hire me as a mascot and one of the teams hired me and so I became professional mascot.
Kevin Hines:
Pray tell, what team?
Trey Humphreys:
It's top secret.
Kevin Hines:
Oh, come on!
Trey Humphreys:
It's top secret.
Kevin Hines:
You can't do that.
Trey Humphreys:
It's an NFL team, which is football, American football.
Kevin Hines:
Yeah, college.
Trey Humphreys:
And they're in Atlanta.
Trey Humphreys:
Ok, just hello. And it was, I wore yellow tights because I was portraying a falcon.
Kevin Hines:
Aha! That's as far as we can go. ...
Trey Humphreys:
So I was, uh, I started doing that, which gave me some time. And then, and then I started the fur bus, which was a party bus company, and then I started deejaying in the bars and I got came across a bar deal, so I bought a bar and then I did a restaurant, to own a restaurant now. And you know, I've had this entrepreneur journey where if I get interested in something, I want to do it, right? Like, I always wanted to be in bars, like get a bar or DJs are cool, try it, you know? My whole philosophy has been like, if you're interested in something, try to do it, right? Like, why not? That's what it's all about, having experiences and stuff. So I've been blessed to have some good ventures in the entrepreneurial world, but often tell people I'm more of an artist than I am a businessman, right? ... I was a mascot. How can a mascot be a businessman? So that's a little bit of my journey, and here I am now on podcasts and blogs and stuff.
Kevin Hines:
And we're glad to have you. So, so you've been a DJ.
Trey Humphreys:
I've been.
Kevin Hines:
And you started a fur bus.
Trey Humphreys:
Fur Bus.
Kevin Hines:
Now, just to be clear, for those, for those, maybe there's a grandma and grandpa watching right now, no offense to how old you are, whoever you are, it's fine, you're great, you're amazing just the way you are. But I want to know if they don't understand what a fur party bus is.
Trey Humphreys:
Yeah.
Kevin Hines:
Break it down?
Trey Humphreys:
So when I got out of college, my buddy and I bought a limo for fun. We always want to buy a limo, we painted the pink, painted the outside pink and put a bunch of fake fur on the inside to make it look, in my mind, like the old pimp cars you see back in the seventies, whatever, just completely obnoxious and outrageous. And so the car was very popular then it died. And then the next year we bought a little school bus, same deal. All this crazy fur on the inside and just obnoxious, and we drove it to Las Vegas for New Year's packed a bunch of stupid costumes. And then when we get, we got back, the bus got real popular amongst our friends. And so eventually I was like, well, maybe we should start a business. I mean, it's super popular. And so that's kind of how it started to. It's a limo bus basically with a bunch of crazy fur on the inside and lights and sound and all that. And it's for people that want to have a good time, go out, special occasions. It's called the fur bus because obviously there's much fur in there. And we've done I think our oldest birthday party is a ninety-two-year-old man on the fur bus. So they get on there.
Kevin Hines:
How old is he today?
Trey Humphreys:
Today, he's probably a hundred and eight, because we started,
Kevin Hines:
OK. This is a while now.
Trey Humphreys:
No, he was about five or six years ago.
Kevin Hines:
Oh wow.
Trey Humphreys:
Yeah.
Kevin Hines:
Oh, and did he have a good time?
Trey Humphreys:
Oh yeah, he crushed it.
Kevin Hines:
Crushed it. ... Does the party fur bus business still exist?
Trey Humphreys:
Yeah, yeah. We're coming up on 20 years!
Kevin Hines:
20 years? In and around Atlanta.
Trey Humphreys:
In and around Atlanta.
Kevin Hines:
I want to focus from here.
Trey Humphreys:
Let's get focused.
Kevin Hines:
All right. In your DJ career. Favorite song?
Trey Humphreys:
Favorite song?
Kevin Hines:
Favorite song, favorite genre.
Trey Humphreys:
Favorite song. So, you know, I'm a seventies disco guy, and my favorite genre of music is EDM music, house music. Like, I play a lot of house music and I love the big festivals of, electronic festivals. I'm a little too old to love it, but whatever, I go to them and I love to dance and I have a great time and I love that kind of music and the beat and the production and everything. Love it and I love to dance. I think people that dance are the healthiest people in the world.
Kevin Hines:
Oh, I would have to agree.
Trey Humphreys:
Because they just, there's just something about them, they don't care what people think, they're just, we're not good dancers, but we're.
Kevin Hines:
You dance, right?
Trey Humphreys:
It's just, you know, so the dance music is mine, it's definitely mine.
Kevin Hines:
EDM, is that like?
Trey Humphreys:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kevin Hines:
What am I doing? I don't know.
Trey Humphreys:
You're a DJ.
Kevin Hines:
I'm a DJ now, and I tell you, our videographer slash filmmaker slash extraordinary human being, Tyshawn Cooper, Hello, Tyshawn.
Trey Humphreys:
Hello!
Kevin Hines:
Tyshawn, he dances all the time. I'm doing it, Tyshawn, I'm letting the cat out of the bag. They're just walking around the house and just start dancing. And I love it, man. It's amazing.
Trey Humphreys:
It's probably a super happy dude!
Kevin Hines:
Smile, he's smiling all the time.
Trey Humphreys:
See?
Kevin Hines:
Maybe it makes me smile just seeing him smiling. I tend to be a I dance in the shower and that's, that's TMI. But I said it, what are you gonna do about it? You're.
Trey Humphreys:
Here's an interesting story talking about dance. I heard a story of a guy a couple of years ago, and when I heard this story, I was like, that is how I want my life to be. This story, if I could my life be one way, it's, it's all encompassed in the story. And what it was was there's this ninety-five-year-old man that kept asking for an iPhone for Christmas from his family. Same as, like, well you don't know how to use a ... White, you know, whatever. And he's just like, why not, why not, I want an iPhone. So they got him an iPhone for Christmas. And it turns out the reason he wanted an iPhone is so he could download Uber so that he could take Uber to this dance on Friday nights. And I'm like, that's where I want to be when I'm bored, I want to be the guy that's going to the dance on Friday nights as long as I can, as long as I'm alive, and just like that story pretty much summed it all up for me, so.
Kevin Hines:
If your feet can move up, wig them in your vertical.
Trey Humphreys:
Let's keep dancing, man. ... dancing, let's keep your moving.
Kevin Hines:
I love it, that's fantastic. So tell me about your appreciation or your fandom of the one and the only, Tony Robbins.
Trey Humphreys:
Yeah so.
Kevin Hines:
... Tony.
Trey Humphreys:
Yeah, it's interesting. When I was growing up, I didn't have a male role model. My dad was sketch, and I was raised by women for the most part, and my grandfathers were emotionally cut off. So I really didn't have a really good male role model. I've always been fascinated with personal development and all that stuff, and I've always been very fascinated with Tony Robbins from a stage presence in a business acumen, and he's a marketing genius. Aside from the self-help stuff, if you look at him as a businessman, he has done extraordinary things for marketing and all this stuff. So I'm like I always want to see him perform, I just want to see him perform. And so about six years ago, something popped up on my Facebook and it was one of his little weekend events and it was in L.A. and I've had friends in L.A. and I was like, it's on my birthday. I was like, that's kind of a sign. It's like, you know, I'm going to go see him. I'm going to spend the 500 bucks and I'll go check it out just so I could see him perform before he gets too old to do what he does. And I was kind of in a really low place at the time of businesses weren't doing very well, and I've just mentally in bad space and I went to his event and the second night, I think it was the second night, he does this experience he takes you through. And it blew me wide open. And for the first time in my life, which is crazy, it was the first time I'd ever felt self-love. And this is like I'm an old man. So I'm like, holy cow, and so he blew me wide open and then, I still, you know, I still like him from his business and all that stuff. But there's something about him as a quote-unquote, for me, a role model in that he's confident, he's kind, and that's kind of what I needed in my life and what I still need in my life. And I kind of model a little bit of his energy, you know, and that's what I think attracted me to his presence and his message and all that other stuff. So I think there's somebody like that for everyone, it doesn't have to be Tony or Tim Ferriss or a monk, or it could be anybod, right? But there's somebody that I think as men, there's somebody we need to look up to and say, you know, that guy's got some of the juice and I want to build a little bit of that juice of me, so.
Kevin Hines:
The healthy, green, tasty kind.
Trey Humphreys:
Yeah.
Kevin Hines:
For sure. Stuff that makes you vibrant and be ready to take positive,
Trey Humphreys:
Positive vibes.
Kevin Hines:
Positive vibes.
Trey Humphreys:
Yeah, positive positive vibes, for sure. So, yeah, so I, you know, still big fan and I credit him to a lot of my growth, you know, and I watch a lot of his stuff and I've actually volunteered at some of his events, which has been super cool and uh.
Kevin Hines:
Nice. Well, you know, I liked meeting Tony. He's the Mr. Robbins. He's a very, very creative, energetic fellow. I don't know how he does 10 hours in one day, but the man's got it mastered, that's pretty special.
Trey Humphreys:
Super.
Kevin Hines:
You know, it's people who can, who can maintain that.
Trey Humphreys:
Did. Here's a question, did you ever have somebody that you looked up to like that? When you were...
Kevin Hines:
My dad
Trey Humphreys:
Your dad?
Kevin Hines:
My dad. And I'll tell you why. I call him good old Patty .... I don't call him.
Trey Humphreys:
...?
Kevin Hines:
...
Trey Humphreys:
Okay, ...
Kevin Hines:
I don't call that to his face because he'd punch me.
Trey Humphreys:
Ok.
Kevin Hines:
No, he wouldn't punch me, he never did. But you wouldn't appreciate if I called him ..., which is a nickname I gave him a long time ago as a joke, but he didn't appreciate it. Nonetheless, let's get back to, back to the facts. My dad, Pat Hines. Hi, Pat! So my dad is this guy I always looked up to. He was the tough guy, you know, tough S.O.B., sunset Irishman, difficult around the edges, yelled a lot. But when the S hit the fan and my life was dwindling down into a complete rabbit hole of mental pain and a great deal of what someone would call suffering from this mental struggle and this brain pain, my dad was the only person at the time before I met my lovely Margaret, my dad was the only guy and person to take me in and say, I got you no matter what, I'm never going to let you go, and no matter what you do to me, no matter how difficult you become, son, I'm going to hold on to you. When a lot of people in my life were like, we need to get the hell away from Kevin Hines and that kind of strength, you don't see every day. And I think that, you know, you talk about in brevity about your difficult relationship with your dad. And if you wanted to get into that, if not, I totally get it. But my dad, we had a tough relationship. But today, you know, I'll never forget the day he called me out of the blue and said, hey, Kev, you know when I took you sailing? And I was like, yeah, we used to go sailing, like, you know, in the little tiny, I don't know, do what he sailboat. And I was to tired to teach me sailing, and I was very, I was terrible at it, and I didn't understand it, I couldn't, I don't know what the jib was versus whatever the hell the rest of it's called, and I messed up the whole thing, we're going off wind, we're tipping over and he's getting really upset and he's just screaming at me and he calls me about, I would say, a little less than a year ago. This is a man who yelled all of our relationship.
Trey Humphreys:
Ok.
Kevin Hines:
He called me last year, and he goes Kev, I just tried to call you, I had to tell you that I'm sorry.
Trey Humphreys:
Oh, wow!
Kevin Hines:
I was like, what are you sorry for, dad? This man doesn't say sorry for anything. What are you sorry for, dad? I'm sorry. I yelled at you the time, that time I took you sailing.
Trey Humphreys:
Oh, wow.
Kevin Hines:
And I said to him, Did he just say that time like that one time?
Trey Humphreys:
It hasn't been happening one.
Kevin Hines:
... 30 years, you mean? You know, but when I recognized at that moment, I'm comfortable saying today, I'll show this to him before I post it, we're not, what I recognize then is he meant every time.
Trey Humphreys:
Yeah.
Kevin Hines:
Because this is a man who's never said he's sorry to anyone for anything. He's a tough guy, raised in a tough life, had a tough childhood, but here he is, never letting me go, and every time I was in mental pain before I met Margaret, he had my back and he had me on lock. And when everyone else was worried about its toughness, I'm sorry, but he was there for me, in a big way.
Trey Humphreys:
Yeah.
Kevin Hines:
And so I always looked up to him, always. It was his, it was his stature, it was his ability to walk in a room and everyone would be like, oh, look, it's Pat, huh? Like, if they didn't know me, like, who is that guy? As he gets older, you know, as we do, we, all we do get slower, we get more methodical about our reasoning and we become more humble, you know, because we can't do as many things as we used to be able to do. So he's in that stage of life right now. But God darn it, I love you, Pat Hines, best dad a kid could ever have.
Trey Humphreys:
That's cool.
Kevin Hines:
And that's really my hero. If you look outside of my dad into like the world of pop culture and you know, who do you look up to? It's very simple. The man has one name and it's well, two ones, The Rock.
Trey Humphreys:
The Rock, for sure?
Kevin Hines:
Dwayne Johnson. His story impacted me, and it has impacted me in a huge way over my lifetime. You know, when I, here's an example my father got me a signed copy of The Rock's book, The Rock Says, there's a passage in it about his severe depression and his potential issues with, I think, maybe potentially suicidal thinking and how he broke free from that, and his situation of poverty after being canceled from the CFL.
Trey Humphreys:
Yeah, yeah.
Kevin Hines:
And he talks about how the depression was going to destroy his life and how he used faith and the struggle to move forward to get past the depression and how he still goes through it sometimes. He's talked about multiple occasions and multiple platforms, but in that book, The Rock Says, which was the first place he ever spoke upon it, I was in this suicidal crisis.
Trey Humphreys:
Oh, really?
Kevin Hines:
All reading that passage.
Trey Humphreys:
Oh wow.
Kevin Hines:
It kept me here. And so that in a sense, if you look outside of my family and people around me, his ability to connect to people of all walks of life from all around the world with what he's built, the most bankable movie star in the world, forget all that, that guy spoke to me with just one sentence in that book, that I carried with me for the rest of my life.
Trey Humphreys:
And it's so wild. I mean, that's what you're doing now, right now there are people seeing you, it's just amazing how it all works.
Kevin Hines:
You know, I didn't think about it like that, but he inspired everything that I'm doing right now, along with my dad, too. And it was my dad who, my uncle, Kevin, may he rest in peace, Hey, Kev.
Trey Humphreys:
Thank you.
Kevin Hines:
Named after Patrick Kevin Hines, John Kevin Hines, Kevin Joseph Ryan, it was the two of them, Pat and Kev, that put me on this path of speaking and sharing my story. And Uncle Kevin would, he would sit there in every speech and he would say, Kevin, let me tell you what you did wrong. You know it? He would, just sit there like, no, no comment, like, like, you know, once in a while he'd go like, OK, that was solid, you actually read the book I gave you my public speaking, and I'll see that pass from this page in this chapter, so, and my dad was similar. It was like, how can you get better every day? And how can you reach more people? But back to you, Mr. Humphryes, we've got a lot more to cover. I want to know about your blogging.
Trey Humphreys:
First of all, I think the word blog is a terrible word, but I don't, you know, I don't know, I don't have another word for it, but I just think it's terrible word. So here's an interesting story. When I was growing up, I failed every spelling test in high school, I can't spell, to this day I can't spell. I don't want to label myself I can't spell what I can't spell. And so grammar was never my thing at all, worst subject. And then when I went to college, whatever the course was, where you do all the writing, writing papers and stuff, I got a D, so only D I've ever gotten in my life. You know, I'm like a B, a couple of C's once in a while student. And so writing is the farthest thing from my skill set on Earth, like there's, I can't write, there's no way I can write. Well, a girlfriend of mine had a big blog here in Atlanta and she's like, you're fine, dude. I've got to put these blogs out all the time, why don't you write one and then I'll, well, I can't write, I've failed, you know, English and this and that. It's like, no, not funny, you just write one and I'll fix the spelling or whatever and we'll put it out, I'm like all right. So I wrote one and sent it to her and she edit it up, and she was like, that was amazing. I was like, what are you talking about ...? She's like, it's funny. And she put it on her site, and it got a lot, a lot of people liked it, and I was like, holy shit. And so she's like, write another one. I was like, OK. So came up with a blog about selfies. We were making fun of selfies when the selfie revolution was coming up.
Kevin Hines:
The selfie revolution.
Trey Humphreys:
Yeah. So I like these pictures, these are the worst selfies in the world, whatever you still find it somewhere. And she put it up on her site and it went viral, crashed her site, and then it was shared a million times around the world, right? And I'm not saying this to say that I'm some amazing writer, but it was interesting how I thought the only thing I can't do like, the one thing I'm terrible at now was just shared a million times around the world. And so when that happened, I was like, man, so I started my own blog where I write, and I'm not the best writer, but I'm, I'm putting out some stuff on my blog. And what I found out is blogging is the hardest thing to do because you have to push, send or publish. And when you do, if you're honest and vulnerable in your writings, you're terrified to push that button, right? Because everybody comes to me, I want to start a blog. No, you don't. Because when you do, you have to say, you know, this is what's going on with me, if you're honest, right? I mean, there's a lot of people saying, you should do this, and here's the five steps of that. But what I started doing was writing, you know, I'm lonely and it sucks. And I went through depression last week and it sucked. And this is, this is what happened to me, and there it is, right? And then it started like, I'm sure you get a lot of it, it's like people were like, oh my god, thank you for saying that, and that hit me, whatever is, and so I started connecting with people. But you know, it's been an outlet for me to like, purge a little bit of what's going on with me and then it helps a few other people, which is interesting, but it's very scary for me, and I think for a lot of people, to be vulnerable tell the world or to Facebook or whatever it is, it's not, not like Instagram like, look at me and my filter and I'm on vacation or whatever mine was like, my business sucks right now, and I'm super depressed, and I almost hate myself and I'm fighting through it, whatever, whatever, messes it out. And that's what people want. That's, that's what they respond to. So it's been an interesting journey for sure. And my takeaway with it has been it's taught me vulnerability, which is powerful, but it's also taught me that the limitations we think we have might not be limitations at all, right? And so go out there, try things, do things, make documentaries, and write stories and like do the creative things that, you know, they can't, because you might be able to do them, you know, and you might be amazing at it.
Kevin Hines:
The ninety-eight percentile. Are you aware of that? Ninety-eight percentile of the population of the world fully actualizes all of their goals in life.
Trey Humphreys:
Really?
Kevin Hines:
You sound like you are part of the ninety-eight percentile.
Trey Humphreys:
I don't know about that.
Kevin Hines:
Well, I'm saying, I'm saying and I'm fascinated by your story. That's about you as a human being, point of reference, I loved you in Padres.
Trey Humphreys:
Thank you. Thank you.
Kevin Hines:
That Poblano thingamajig that you make.
Trey Humphreys:
Which I make it, I make it myself every time.
Kevin Hines:
Every time it's ...
Trey Humphreys:
I'm the only person who makes it.
Kevin Hines:
... Runs to the kitchen. If he has to, if it's ordered right now.
Trey Humphreys:
We can order now, I have to go.
Kevin Hines:
He's got to get the hell out of here.
Trey Humphreys:
Right.
Kevin Hines:
Make that put down a thingamajig, I don't know what it's called, but I know I love it.
Trey Humphreys:
Do you want to know a secret? No one knows in the world?
Kevin Hines:
... here.
Trey Humphreys:
Earmuffs, everyone else. I own the restaurant and a couple of bars, I have no idea how to cook.
Kevin Hines:
What?
Trey Humphreys:
I am a grown man, I promise you I have no, I could probably cook scrambled eggs if I tried. And I've, you know, I've always been saying, I always lived alone top. I've eaten out every single meal my whole life, which I know is terrible and all that stuff, but I have no idea how to cook, but that's for another podcast.
Kevin Hines:
Yeah.
Trey Humphreys:
That's another time. That's not neither here nor there, but I can't cook. So maybe I'll just stay here for a couple of weeks and eat with you guys.
Kevin Hines:
Let's do it.
Trey Humphreys:
Let's do it.
Kevin Hines:
You're welcome.
Trey Humphreys:
Thank you.
Kevin Hines:
I want to get back for it. We talked, we briefly spun by something I think it's really important we touch upon it because if you weren't making an impact like you do with your blogs, which we hate that word, let's call it something else, the things we write, the.
Trey Humphreys:
Articles.
Kevin Hines:
We don't need to have grammatical spelling issues with them or not.
Trey Humphreys:
Do they call blogs, blogs in Australia? We'll have to fix that, too.
Kevin Hines:
Ok.
Trey Humphreys:
I think Australian people are course people in the world.
Kevin Hines:
Why? Tell my wife that, tell me why.
Trey Humphreys:
They're generally very happy and optimistic, they're laid back and they're kind. The ones I've met, right? So I, I just, never mind none of those, none of those are true. ... The British people are the best. No, no. I love Australian people. If, it's an .... box.
Kevin Hines:
.... Like a hybrid Australian-British person. So we talked briefly for a hot second about self-hatred.
Trey Humphreys:
Mmhmm.
Kevin Hines:
I got to be ... and I talked about this in my speeches and my past. But being vulnerable, it's hard for a man. We're going to get right into it after this about your exchange group, I want to know about that, but I have lived well with on and off self-loathing, I would say most of my life that I can recall.
Trey Humphreys:
Yeah.
Kevin Hines:
And I think it had a lot to do with a few things, the verbal and physical abuse I would get as a kid in grade school from the other kids. There was definitely a high-intensity hate factor for me not looking like them, and that was really rough. There were the eighth graders that picked me up and put me in trash cans and told me that's what I was because of what I looked like, because I was adopted, those kinds of thing. And that stays with you.
Trey Humphreys:
Sure.
Kevin Hines:
For the rest of your life, I was a fourth-grader when they started doing that, when they would hold my head down, you know? Is an eighth grader. You know, Gguy ends up becoming a cop later on, it's holding my head down, I'm in fourth grade and he's calling me all kinds of racial slurs. I never met the guy, like, why? Why do you hate me? You know, I don't understand. Then I would go home, and I remember they would say this thing over to me, over and over and over again, and as the adult.
Trey Humphreys:
Yeah.
Kevin Hines:
You know, eighth-graders, I mean, all these eighth-graders.
Trey Humphreys:
Right.
Kevin Hines:
Let me go back. It's going to be harder cut, getting the space. All of these eighth-grade kids, when I was in fourth grade, there was a group of them that were, they were the sons of what's called the SDI. The Sunset District Irish.
Trey Humphreys:
Ok.
Kevin Hines:
Which was a a hateful group of Italian and Irishmen, who in the 60s, 70, 80s, committed a lot of hate crimes. Their sons went to the school I went to in grade school and their sons hated anybody who was part anything but white.
Trey Humphreys:
Ok.
Kevin Hines:
I'm many things, my background is black, Iraqi, Indian, Portuguese, Scottish, Irish, English, Italian, Mexican, and when they got wind of that, they, it was torturous what they did to me, and I don't think any of them could, would even remember.
Trey Humphreys:
Sure.
Kevin Hines:
Or care.
Trey Humphreys:
Sure.
Kevin Hines:
That that affected the rest of my life.
Trey Humphreys:
Sure.
Kevin Hines:
And that I would look in the mirror every day and say, I hate you, Kevin, you're useless, you have no value, but I would keep it inside. I kept it inside, I didn't tell my family, didn't tell my friends for the longest time. In fourth grade was the first time I ever heard voices, auditory hallucinations, you wonder why, right? And what I'm trying to say, my friend, is that I feel your pain. I certainly don't understand it, I wasn't where you were or what you are living, what you went through, but that's self-loathing that we find ourselves in as men, we got to talk about it. That's why I love what you're doing at the exchange. Can you tell us about your experience with self-hatred a little more, if you want to, and about the exchange and how you're bringing men together to have a real conversation about healing?
Trey Humphreys:
Yeah, it's, guys don't like to talk, right? We don't like to be vulnerable. And you know, the history of the world is guys have been warriors, right? Tribal, you protect the village, you protect the tribe, you protect your warriors, so you've got to be, and even in war today, you know, men, young men go to war today and you've got to cut the emotion out because you've got to, you're in war, right? So, but now we're in this time where it's like, oh, now you've got to connect to your feelings and you've got to be emotional and you got to be this and that. So I think for men, it's very confusing. What are we? What, vulnerable, if I'm going to war, I'm not going to be vulnerable, I'm going to be warrior. And when I come back from war, now we're going to be vulnerable .... So I think it's very confusing. But you know, the self-hatred thing for me, I don't know where it came from, but I know that I, I hated myself a long time and I never loved myself, right? And so last year I did this thing, I would do these weird creative things. And in December, after coming to folk, I'm going to make this month all about love. Like, I'm going to figure out love, I'm going to research it, I'm going to wear heart socks, I'm going to write love poems, I'm going to talk to everybody can about love, I'm going to talk, you know, love therapists, I'm just going to figure it all out.
Kevin Hines:
Oh, yeah.
Trey Humphreys:
Might be able to write a blog about it or, you know, see what happens? Because, you know, I've been single a long time and I got to figure this out and my North Star is love. Like, that's the only thing that I'm, that's like my North Star. So, and I have a lot of issues from building walls when I was little to keep the pain out. I was so disappointed by my dad and some other things, but I was like, no one's ever going to hurt me again, so I just built these walls, I'm not going to be emotional. The heart shut down. Screw you, people. Here we are, I'm safe. And so now I've been doing a lot of work to tear those walls down so I can have an intimate relationship with friends and family and open up and all that stuff we've been talking about. But when I was doing this month of love in December, I'd always ask people the same three questions. I think I asked like 70 people, just random people. I always ask, what's your definition of love? And every answer was different. Nobody really knew, right, which is totally fine, I don't really know what the definition is. And then the second question I always asked was, how many times have you been in love? And you just see them bounce around in their head and most would say two or three times. And I thought that was very interesting. And then after I got through those questions, I would ask, do you love yourself? And 70 people asked that question, I would say 64 said no. And what that told me was, a lot of us don't love ourselves, and I don't even know if loving yourself is a thing. I don't, I don't know what that means, I don't know if it's possible, I do believe that you can be kind to yourself, I think you can be accepting of yourself, I think you can be proud of yourself, those things. But like, do you love yourself? That's a weird thing for me. But seeing everybody say no, except for a few people and the few people that said yes when I asked them that question, they just smiled. It was just, it was just, it was like, yes, of course. And so I knew it was true. And the others would be like, well, you know, or no, or whatever it was. And so I think it's an epidemic that we all got to figure out. Maybe it's part of everybody's journey, I don't know. But it's a fascinating thing.
Kevin Hines:
Look at how many people, how many cultures, societies, subcultures, job descriptions, occupations are dying by suicide today.
Trey Humphreys:
Mmhmm.
Kevin Hines:
That all stems from self-hatred. That's the greatest self-hatred you can possibly have is to take your life. I tried it at 19. I try, I said I went forward at 18. Would you do me a favor?
Trey Humphreys:
Yeah.
Kevin Hines:
Would you ask me those three questions?
Trey Humphreys:
Yes, I will. What is your definition of love?
Kevin Hines:
Hope.
Trey Humphreys:
Hope?
Kevin Hines:
Yeah.
Trey Humphreys:
That's good. How many times in your life have you been in love?
Kevin Hines:
Exactly, two.
Trey Humphreys:
Exactly two. And they are. They are with who or?
Kevin Hines:
They are with one person that is no longer with us. And they are with the woman upstairs in my Margaret Hines.
Trey Humphreys:
And do you love yourself?
Kevin Hines:
Absolutely.
Trey Humphreys:
And how long have you loved yourself?
Kevin Hines:
I felt myself for about five months.
Trey Humphreys:
And was there something that turned it? Was there a moment, was there something that helped you?
Kevin Hines:
Yes.
Trey Humphreys:
Find that?
Kevin Hines:
I was at a hotel. I was in a lot of pain physically. My pain comes and goes my physical pain, I have a chronic skin disease. And I was working, I worked out for six hours straight, because I ... Because I couldn't, brought, do anything to make the pain go away, but worked out so I could cause more pain physically to think about something else besides this physical pain that's ailing me. And I've talked to myself, I've been in dialogue and I have voices I hear in my head all the time, all the time. I told you about my demons that I see. And for the longest time, I would do this. I would look at the, look at something that doesn't exist, me, that doesn't exist and say I hate you, I'm gonna kill you, Kevin, there's nothing you can do, it's inevitable, I hate you. I'm always going to hate you.
Trey Humphreys:
You would say that visualizing yourself?
Kevin Hines:
Yeah. I could see me over there wearing the same outfit, just I'm going to get you, Kev, and it was all, since I was a child I've done this, and Kev looks back to me. I mean, I feel insane saying he looks at me and he finally says Kevin, stop. It's got to mean, you're, you're doing it. It's nowhere, I'm done.
Trey Humphreys:
Oh, wow.
Kevin Hines:
I'm done hurting you, you hurt enough, you hurt enough for a long time. I'm sorry, I love you, I'll never try to kill you again, I will not have this conversation again, I apologize. And he got up and walked away, and I haven't seen him since.
Trey Humphreys:
Right.
Kevin Hines:
Yeah.
Trey Humphreys:
Did that come with, was that shocking to you when that happened?
Kevin Hines:
Extremely. I mean, I think it had to do with a lack of sleep and everything.
Trey Humphreys:
Or, or.
Kevin Hines:
Or I was just finally done with hating myself because I've hated myself for a long time. I don't have this conversation with anyone, shit. But you know.
Trey Humphreys:
Yeah.
Kevin Hines:
I hated myself for a long time. And I looked at me and I was like, Kevin, enough. You're good, dude. But I know what things you've done in your life that have hurt other people or what things you've done to hurt yourself, you can move forward. It's about, I feel like it's my belief.
Trey Humphreys:
Do you accept yourself?
Kevin Hines:
Yes, today. Yeah, yeah, I accept my flaws. I have a lot of them. I accept my misunderstandings of other people and how I, I am sometimes judgmental of them too, not just myself.
Trey Humphreys:
Right.
Kevin Hines:
You know, my mom taught me, Debbie Hines taught me, as a child, ok, you know, we have an interesting relationship now, it's kind of been a strange one, but she taught me to always be kind, compassionate, loving, caring, empathetic and non-judgmental to every person I've ever come into contact with, no matter the behavior toward me. So the, the majority of my childhood to my adult life, that's how I ran my life. And then I forgot about it. I began judging people for their actions, their thoughts, their emotions, or when I thought about them, and I realized, you know, my mom judges me for my decisions even today, even though she taught that to me in a way, she didn't say those words. That's how I interpreted what she taught me as a child growing up. My father know about it, I was very judgmental of people, I was very weary of people like, you know, mistrustfuly, like, I don't know you even if I know you, you know what I'm saying? And when I went back to being kind to people after I broke myself and I had to get back up from the ground, I felt self loving and it came in the form of hope for myself. And that's why I wanted you to ask me, what is love? I said hope, because for me, that's what it's all about. If I can't find hope, I have no purpose. You know, I have no purpose, I can't stay here.
Trey Humphreys:
Yeah.
Kevin Hines:
So, and that's also why I maintain that I'll never kill myself, even though I still have suicidal thoughts, which is, it can be confusing.
Trey Humphreys:
And so, are those thoughts, out of curiosity, as strong as they have ever been or how do you?
Kevin Hines:
No, no, no, not at all. They're in control because every time I, every, every time I feel suicidal, it's not so much, I'm going to kill myself or I'm going to make this plan. But when I have suicidal thoughts, I absolutely turn to the person in front of me and say, I need help now in some way, shape, or form.
Trey Humphreys:
Oh, wow.
Kevin Hines:
And that's the greatest form of self-love inside the, inside the suicidal thinking, I could always ask for help. And if you say no, I'll go to Laurence, if Laurence's a no, I go to Tayshawn ... first to my dad, and they will get me to a safe place because of my self-love.
Trey Humphreys:
It's so interesting. You know, we're talking about this exchange earlier, which is this organization I started for men, and I was on a podcast yesterday and it was about success, this and that, and the guy interviewing was like, what's the, what's the number one thing you've learned about getting better as a man or as a person or as a business person? And I was telling him the one thing that I had to learned, it was the hardest lesson, was to ask for help. The only way that we will ever advance or progress or grow in anything is when we ask for help or we get it outside of us. So it's so wild that you just said, you know, one of your things is I have to turn and ask for, just connect or if that's, it's very interesting, interesting thing to hear for you. What are you hopeful for, for the future?
Kevin Hines:
You know, right now, I hope we stop the Amazon rainforest fires, you know?
Trey Humphreys:
Yeah, that's a crazy thing.
Kevin Hines:
It's terrifying. You know, every, every fifth breath is going to be taxed very soon, you know, and that's a wild thing to think about, but, but on a, on a scale of, for the realm of prevention and wellness, I think I hope that we reduce the numbers of suicide in the human, in society, around the world by 25 percent in the next five years, if we can, because I think that if we can help people all around the world through our effort to find self-love inside their self-hatred and stay here, they're going to create relationships that change lives as they grow older. You know, one of the greatest questions I've ever been asked by people is what would you have missed?
Trey Humphreys:
Yeah.
Kevin Hines:
Look at what I would have missed.
Trey Humphreys:
Yeah.
Kevin Hines:
I mean, I'm not gonna get into it now, like everything that matters to me, every one that matters to me today, I would have missed them being an integral part of my life, my wife's life, my father's life, my friend's life, my family's life, my colleagues's lives, I would have missed being that godparent that Margaret taught to godchildren who are those beautiful, cute little pumpkins on the face of the planet. ... Zoe, Judah, we love you ....
Trey Humphreys:
I know that's important, but you would have missed being here with me.
Kevin Hines:
I wouldn't be here with you.
Trey Humphreys:
But I have to have one more question.
Kevin Hines:
In the present, exactly.
Trey Humphreys:
As you were talking earlier, and we're probably overtime here.
Kevin Hines:
No, we're good. Time is relevant. The only commodity we really have in life is time, everyone says that they don't have enough time, they don't know what they're talking about. They're just saying that because they know you're ....
Trey Humphreys:
Right. You know, you said earlier, your mother taught you to be kind.
Kevin Hines:
Compassionate,
Trey Humphreys:
Loving, compassionate, you know, which I think is the ultimate values that we can teach. And I think in general, as humans, we pretty much do that for other people. You know, there's some people that don't but whatever, but we, why is it so hard for us to do that for ourselves? Do you think, it's a weird, like, I can be kind to people and it's not very hard, being kind to myself is very hard, what is that? Well, if you have any.
Kevin Hines:
I think that we are unkind to ourselves.
Trey Humphreys:
Sure.
Kevin Hines:
Because of every hateful, spiteful, hurtful, negative thing that's ever been done or said to us or about us. I think that we internalize or have internalized everything that's ever broken us down, and then we played over and over again in our heads, called perseveration, right? So when you hear things like, recite, repeat, believe, right?
Trey Humphreys:
Mmhmm.
Kevin Hines:
Every every faith is based on reciting, repeating, and believing, if you're in eternal dialogue is recite, repeat, believe what other people have said about you, if you were bullied as a kid from the, from kindergarten through ninth grade, all you remember when you go home to your loving family is that everyone at school fucking hate you.
Trey Humphreys:
Yeah.
Kevin Hines:
You know, or that's the feeling anyway, so you go home, you get in bed, and all you feel is, oh, I'm a horrible person.
Trey Humphreys:
That's true.
Kevin Hines:
They'll hate me. They think, they all say, I'm ugly, they say my ears are too big, my nose is too big, they call me beak face. You know, I am, I am stupid, I am dumb, that's why we're doing this podcast is to show people that they can look in the mirror and they can retrain the negative inner critical voice. The negative inner critical voice runs a lot of people's lives.
Trey Humphreys:
So like when you're working with a young person, that's going through that, because there's a lot of kids go through, and shit, as adults we go through that, right? What do you tell them? I mean, how do you get them to believe and do some of the small things that you say start doing, right?
Kevin Hines:
So I do it with young people and adults alike, when there's thousands of people in a room, we do an immediate reversal of those thoughts. So I'll ask an audience, I'll say, how many of you adult and child alike in this room have ever felt useless, worthless or a part dumb and hundreds and hundreds of hands go up. I've asked anyone who felt that way to come down from the bleachers in a tee in a school field, one hundred, one thousand two hundred people, three hundred and fifty kids came down one time and stood behind me. I just started crying, I started crying and I said, principal, do you see this? It was like, yeah I see it. I said, what are you going to do about it? And I said, OK, I'm going to say my name, and ou say your name, then repeat after me, all right? We are going to do a negative inner critical voice reversal, right here, right now, and we're going to do it together. Everybody else join in. My name, your name, you repeat after me and I yell, Kevin, they yell, Sally, James, whoever.
Trey Humphreys:
Yeah.
Kevin Hines:
But it's thousands of people and I go I am. They go, I am. I go, beautiful, and they go, beautiful. And we go along this line of positive affirmation. And I say, when I'm done and they're just screaming at the top of their lungs, at the end of it, they go, I'm gorgeous and they, they're all smiling, laughing at themselves. They feel so goofy inside for saying that, especially the guys like, I'm gorgeous, you know, but they're still having a blast. And for the first time in a while, these are, a lot of these kids have never said these things to themselves in years, and we end up connecting in a way that's very deep and emotional. And then I say to them, every time you look in the mirror and you hear that negative in a critical voice that says something hurtful, spiteful, or aggressive to yourself, immediately reverse it, the absolute opposite of that.
Trey Humphreys:
Gotcha.
Kevin Hines:
And do it every time. And when you get to the point of twenty-one days, that's a habit. When you do it 365 days.
Trey Humphreys:
That's cool.
Kevin Hines:
You know it because you recite, repeat, believe, and how you know you love yourself.
Trey Humphreys:
As you're saying that, I think, you know, and I'm a believer in positive affirmations and all that stuff, and it's interesting because when you first start saying those as a person, you don't believe it, and so you get discouraged or you quit.
Kevin Hines:
Yeah.
Trey Humphreys:
I'm sure you come across that. When I first started, I remember somebody told me to do mirror work when I was loaned out, and this therapist is like, go home, look in, and look at your eyes and say, I love you. I was like, all right. Couldn't get anywhere near the mirror for the first week. Finally, got the mirror, couldn't look at my own eyes. And then finally, I did it one time and it just broke me and I was crying and all this crazy stuff because I didn't believe it. But I got up and did it the next day, a little easier, I got up, and it just got easier and easier, easier. So it's, it's interesting because you tell people, I am beautiful. Well, you're not going to believe that for a while, but then you are.
Kevin Hines:
Yeah.
Trey Humphreys:
You have to believe in hope that it's coming. You're going to believe that, you're going to turn and that's going to save your life. That's a beautiful thing.
Kevin Hines:
You're literally retraining the synapses, the neurons in your brain, from hate to love.
Trey Humphreys:
It's like all that stuff you went through, those kids were programming your mind with all that negative content, and you had to reverse that with your new life, which is really amazing. Your whole story is unbelievably amazing, and I'm glad that I was there the whole time to help you through it.
Kevin Hines:
Brother, I think we'll end it right there. Trey Humphreys, everybody, is the man, ..., the legend himself. How do people find you online?
Trey Humphreys:
They can go to my website. IAmTrey.com, is easiest or TreyGoesGlobal is my handles on everything.
Kevin Hines:
He's got to handle on at all, during the year. All right, brother. Thank you for coming down. Thank you for talking to us. Really appreciate it. It's all, all ours. My friends, family, folks at home, people in pain, we appreciate your time, we wish you well, we wish you the best, we want you to be here tomorrow and every day after that. You are beautiful, you are loved, you're welcome to our lives. Be here tomorrow. Thank you, guys. I'll see you next time. Bye-bye.
Trey Humphreys:
I'm beautiful. I'm, I'm that fat beautiful. I'm fat good looking.
Kevin Hines:
You're sexy now.
Trey Humphreys:
Yes. Yes, yes.
Kevin Hines:
Cut, cut, cut.
Kevin Hines:
Margaret and I love sharing stories of people who have triumphed over incredible adversity. For more content and inspiration, go to KevinHinesStory.com or visit us on all social media at Kevin HinesStory or on youtube.com/KevinHines.
Sonix is the world’s most advanced automated transcription, translation, and subtitling platform. Fast, accurate, and affordable.
Automatically convert your mp3 files to text (txt file), Microsoft Word (docx file), and SubRip Subtitle (srt file) in minutes.
Sonix has many features that you'd love including collaboration tools, powerful integrations and APIs, enterprise-grade admin tools, upload many different filetypes, and easily transcribe your Zoom meetings. Try Sonix for free today.