Stephen Jackson and his NBA co-star Matt Barnes, have quickly taken over the internet with their top-rated Showtime Podcast – “All The Smoke.” The two men have quite a history with the women in their lives.
Obviously they make a very entertaining duo in Sports commentary and relationship facts of life.
During a recent Instagram live video, Stephen posted a very interesting video telling men to get a wife and to stop chasing multiple women. He also went into detail about why he left Basketball Wives star Imani Showalter at the alter.
Here is that video:
It was an extremely interesting video, centered around Imani deciding to not sign a pre-nup agreement.
All of it was quite fascinating to me, and I was actually surprised to see a man in Stephen’s position utilizing his life and his own past mistakes to lead men the right way.
So I decided to follow up with him and go deeper on this thoughts on relationships. I interviewed Stephen to get further insight into the wedding that never happened and the depth of emotions behind it.
There were certain things he didn’t want to talk about, which he informed me of a few minutes before we went on. I did my best to extract from him the enlightening information that could help others.
Here is the interview below:
Here are the high points that I took from it, from my own perspective.
1. I asked him about his mindset on other people being in his business, because he clearly stated on the first interview, that he didn’t listen to the NBA when they warned him against Imani. This made me very aware of how important she was to him. Therefore my line of questioning, was to show people the emotions from a high value man’s perspective, when he believes he has found real love. He put LOVE before money.
2. He knew OF Imani, and although she has kids with him, they never truly knew each other. Living the lifestyle that Stephen lived their were hoards of women coming at him. He chose Imani for whatever reason, yet spiritually they were not equally yoked.
3. Stephen is a giver. Givers have a habit of self-sacrifice and over-giving because they give from the heart. However in society, people often believe that they are getting over on such people. They don’t realize that NO, the person is very aware of what they are doing, and simply chooses to give from their heart. It’s simply what people who follow God do.
4. He stated that Imani didn’t tell him her real name for YEARS. That’s cray, cray. Was she embarrassed of something in her past. What was the reason behind that?
5. Men want to be loved and appreciated too. A high value, MASCULINE man has ZERO need for a woman’s money. What he needs is a woman who does the little things and actually cares about him. The part about his wife sneaking off to get him something as simple as a birthday cake meant so much to him, because he knew it was from the heart. She wanted to do something to show him how special he is to her.
6. Fathers need to be shown more appreciation for the financial contributions. While most would say “He’s doing what he’s supposed to do.” or “Women do it all of the time by themselves.” What he was saying is that he didn’t pay any REGULAR amounts of child support. He paid child support in excess and UPGRADED those women’s lives. To which he felt very little gratitude. The gratitude is necessary because most highly successful men become the greats they are due to wanting to do more for their families and be better men. That’s what Stephen pointed out.
7. For my Unicorn Tribe, what I deeply got from this interview is that you do yourself a great disservice by going after men or dealing with men who are not wealth conscious. Regular men don’t appreciate bad chicks. They also don’t appreciate you buying them gifts. Buying the average man gifts is considered quite masculine. It will repel him. But men like Stephen will appreciate your cooking, and all of the extra sparkles you put into gifts, birthdays and special occasions. You want to be a great wife, but you can’t be a great wife to a man who doesn’t know what GREATNESS in, let alone appreciates it.
One of the biggest things for Unicorns is that you know how tired high value men must be of women who buy them t-shirts with his own money, or going out to buy him gifts with his own money. You feel that behavior is backwards. So you’ve set out to be the exception to the rule. Except you’re not dating exceptional men. So it backfires on you. You showing your heart backfires when you date the wrong men.
You need to level up and get a wealthy man. Not for his money, but for his mindset. He has a mindset of gratitude. He’s experienced enough women to actually know what real love is and appreciate it.
When a man doesn’t recognize and value true love, there is nothing you can do for him. You can never do enough for him.
8. More men need to become self-aware and take self-accountability for their behaviors, as to how they treat women and how they cause their own dysfunction and chaos.
9. I would love to discuss more with him about the off again, on again relationships and the man’s mindset versus the woman in the relationship who is waiting on him to comeback and why men decide to go back again.
10. As for Imani, I don’t have to talk to her to know that much of her mindset told her that she was acting in love by sticking by him through thick and thin and break-ups during a back and forth relationship. Here is a link to her response.
When a woman accepts a man at his worst, there is no reward. He stays with the woman who only accepts him at his best. There is no reward for self-sacrificing yourself in the name of love.
I’m not taking sides or being biased. I’m simply writing it how it is.
But here’s another thing. Stephen mentioned at some point that Imani was never an actual WIFE. Yet, look at how she benefitted from being with a high value man. That’s the thing about a high value man. A woman is going to benefit from being with him one way or another.
Yet, so many of you Unicorns date below your level. You give men chances. You buy them cars. You buy them gifts. You pay half the bills or mostly ALL of the bills. When you buy a man gifts they are luxury items that go unappreciated. You wear your heart on your sleeves and your money is apart of your heart. So you give. You have to learn to stop trying to effort your way there, and actually date a man who simply digs you for you. THEN you can be your true giving self with him.
In my past I had a man tell me that he actually DESERVED all of the fancy gifts that I purchased him, even though, no woman before me purchased him such things. Heck, the ones he dated couldn’t afford to. Needless to say, he was quite a drain on me. But that’s what I did to myself, by accepting him in his imperfections. He NEVER accepted my imperfections. He was blind and couldn’t see my divinity. That same man though told me in the VERY beginning, when I got him a cake for his birthday cake and cooked for him, that I was doing too much and only trying to prove that I was better than other women. In reality, I AM BETTER, but my intent was to simply delight him. That’s what I do. I like doing DELIGHTFUL things. I’m extra AF! But just to show you DEEPER the mindset. I actually cooked him something LIGHT, I intentionally didn’t go all out, because I didn’t want him to feel like I was doing too much. But even being 3/4 of me backfired, because it just doesn’t work… You gotta be you. But if you are tired of it all and wanting to settle, just do LESS, do every little for men. Yet, that same behavior may backfire when you finally meet your real soulmate. It is so difficult for heart-centered people to find their way in this world.
Women can blame men, and like I say men are to blame. But a woman mostly has to blame herself for her willingness to ACCEPT an imperfect man.
As one of my prayer warrior friends reminded me the other day, you don’t have to wonder if a man is God sent. When he’s God sent he’s going to be better than you expected. And not just better in one way, while he miserably fails in another and pushes you into activating pain wounds, but good for you, where being with him comes easy to you. That’s the peace and divine connection the God wants you to feel.
But as Stephen reiterated at the end of our interview, you only get that when you do the work of healing yourself, finding your authentic self and FULLY loving yourself. You can’t find true love when you’re too afraid to be you.
When we are with the wrong people, we are too afraid to express our emotions for fear they will get upset or not like us anymore. That’s a red flag that neither of you are leading in LOVE.
If this resonated with you, join UNICORN UNIVERSITY TRIBE and start attracting, better, high-vibe, conscious people into your life.
