How Kendrick Lamar's Fear Saved My Mental Health Startup

Intro

When we look at the word fear and its relationship with Black men, we can view it from two angles. One, society is taught to fear the Black man. His mere presence evokes a sense of panic, distrust, and fear for one's life- as illustrated in multiple scenarios, from Emmett Till, allegedly whistling at a white woman, to Trayvon Martin being gunned down by a neighborhood vigilante.

Two, at home, Black men are taught to be fearless. The words "man up" are echoed as your pops or uncle lightly taps his knuckles against your chest. How can the Black man be fearless when he's painted out to be America's enemy number 1?

If you've been following my trajectory, I first introduced you to my love of hip-hop via my personal article, Hip-Hop, Barbershops, and Therapy. For years, I used rap music as a placeholder for actual therapy. Once I found a therapist who spoke to my struggles, hip-hop was just a small fraction of my rehabilitation and the not the treatment in itself.

Today, I look at an artist like Kendrick Lamar, who recently won the Nobel Peace Prize for his album Damn, and just marvel at his success. He's unapologetically Black and fearless. But is he really?

Death of the Mind

One stand-out song from the Damn album is Fear. In verse one, young Lamar is being warned by his mother about everything from jumping on her sofa to getting in trouble at school. A bit arsenic in tone, his mother used fear of her wrath ("I'll beat your ass") to instill discipline within the 7-year-old Lamar. This isn't a foreign practice in many Black households. The notion of "if I don't beat your ass then the world will" was a common theme shared amongst parents when I was growing up in Brownsville.

My parents taught me not to fear anything or anyone in this world. In a community riddled then with crime and drugs, coming face to face with these vices was inevitable. But as I ruminate more on my upbringing, I realized that my parents themselves feared for my safety, along with my loss of innocence, in a world where Black children are invisible. 

From my adolescence to adulthood, I carried two versions of fear. "Lennie, you're fearless. You've excelled in sports, academics and made a name for yourself despite where you come from."

Also, me: "Lennie, the world is waiting for you to fail. You're a Black man in Tech. There aren't a lot of people who look like you in Silicon Valley. Can you handle the pressure?"

Death of the Body

The second verse in Lamar's song digs deeper, sharing that a Black teenager's greatest fear is death at the hands of police officers. Was that the same fear on the minds of the men who recently were accosted by police officers at a Starbucks in Philly? How about the fear of being gunned down in a Walmart parking lot like Diante Yarber?

"If I could smoke fear away, I'd roll that motherfucker up and then I'd take two puffs." The intro to this chorus depicts one way marijuana use has been medicinal to counter the Black man's fears and anxiety. But, somehow, we've been criminalized for it. That's another topic to unpack in a different article.

Spending my teenage years figuring out the world and life, I'm thankful that my parents prepared me the best way they knew how. However, at times, I ask myself was it effective? Did it create a sense of being fearful or a sense of fearlessness? The fearlessness portion propelled me academically, helping me to secure scholarship funds to attend Stony Brook University. It even set the stage for me to become an entrepreneur. But in the back of my mind, fear lingered like a guest who overstayed his welcome.

Death of the Soul

Kendrick's third and final verse summed up the life of a 27-year-old black man experiencing success and the fears that come along with it. Battling who to trust and attempting to avoid failure, drive home his narrative about fear. Whether your success is through business or from the streets, when there are a bit of success fear increases. Or like the incomparable Notorious B.I.G once said it, "Mo money, more problems."

Your body can respond to fear through panic attacks, night sweats, lack of sleep or appetite. But, for a moment, let's look at what it does to your soul. Fear begins to take over your soul and your survival mechanisms that you were once taught begin to kick in. Even without half his success, I can relate to this verse and what it means to protect your success and money at all cost (especially when there's too much at stake.)

I have baggage from navigating this world through trauma making me depressed, giving me anxiety, and living through suicidal thoughts. Are these the things that give me the fire to take on the world as if I was never scared?

Fearlessness

I've spent the last 12 years as a tech entrepreneur, building and growing two startups. My fearlessness gave me the strength to survive the pendulum swings of entrepreneurship. For the past two years, I’ve dedicated sweat and financial equity into building a mental health tech start up, with the Black community as my main target. How do you provide a solution to a community that still finds addressing mental health challenges as taboo?

I founded TruCircle after winning a business competition in Brooklyn, NY. With pre-seed money from Neighborhood Start Fund (Lupe Fiasco and Di-Ann Eisnor), I began my journey in Silicon Valley. Neighborhood Start Fund helped provide access to seasoned VCs, mentors and veteran entrepreneurs who shared with me their experiences in the Valley—some good and some bad. The journey ahead would be challenging.

How would a Black man from Brownsville, Brooklyn, convince a room full of investors that a service such as TruCircle was needed for my community and that it would be profitable? And although having access to Silicon Valley was great, I still felt out of place. I've experienced being the only Black person in a room but being in Silicon Valley only heighten this awareness.

Moreover, do I continue my entrepreneurial path through a world where I'm experiencing imposter syndrome and depression like how Wayne Sutton described it in his article Processing My Struggle with Depression? Just like Kendrick in his third verse, Wayne makes it clear that being a Black man trying to succeed comes with its pitfalls, most notably being judged as one of the biggest fears.

In a world where we can have fearless artists like Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole and Beyonce who are able to own their Blackness, I'm thankful I was able to find a tribe of thousands of other entrepreneurs to support me through my lonely days as an entrepreneur. Working with great organizations such as Black Therapists Rock, NYCEDC, HITLAB, and Neighborhood Start Fund has made this journey bearable and rewarding.

One of the most impactful tribes of them all has been Founder Gym! Mandela SH Dixon, the founder, has done a phenomenal job with leading this intimate group. I started the program with hopes of perfecting the fundraising experience. The wealth of knowledge I received from Founder Gym gave me a better understanding of the process, along with the tools that will help me use my underrepresentation as a strength.

Spending time with my therapist and business coach has allowed me to address my fears openly, opposite of how my close friends and family view me. Will I be able to shake the constant reminder that there is oppression in our country of many cultures, especially the Black culture? Will the fact that only 2% of Black founders are funded cause me to fear rejection? These questions will arise every day but thankfully my support system reminds me that if I view my limitations as strengths while staying authentic, there will be no room for failure.

My goal for TruCircle is for it to be the primary tech tool for mental health professionals. With 77% of counties in the US suffering from a severe shortage of mental health professionals, TruCircle was built as a solution to close that gap, offering a web and mobile application for therapists, social workers, counselors, psychologists, and psychiatrists to connect with their clients.

May 2018 marks the 10th year anniversary of my mother's passing. I'm commemorating her memory and the impact she had on my life and this world by offering TruCircle's HIPAA compliant video conferencing for free to mental health professionals!

Listen to the song Fear by Kendrick Lamar here...

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