Surviving the Side Hustle

From Diagnosis to Determination: Ronek Patel on "I Am Not Your Boy"

• Coach Rob • Season 1 • Episode 89

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Ronek Patel transforms personal adversity into powerful life lessons in this captivating conversation about authenticity, emotional fulfillment, and his new book "I Am Not Your Boy." After receiving an HIV diagnosis at 19, Patel embarked on a journey of self-discovery through years of therapy, ultimately identifying four essential components everyone needs for emotional wholeness: love, support, belonging, and trust.

What makes this discussion particularly compelling is Patel's willingness to be vulnerable while maintaining professional expertise. As a pharmaceutical sales representative by day and author by night, he brings a unique perspective on balancing career success with meaningful personal passion projects. His book serves as both a memoir of vulnerability and a practical guide to strengthening relationships with yourself and others.

The conversation explores eye-opening statistics about modern relationships - from the 97% failure rate of open relationships to the prevalence of undefined "situationships" among young adults. Patel doesn't shy away from uncomfortable topics like pornography addiction and hookup culture, approaching them with sensitivity and insight rather than judgment.

Listeners will appreciate the three-part journey Patel takes readers through: identifying problems rooted in past experiences, applying targeted solutions to present challenges, and building confidence to live authentically moving forward. His message resonates beyond relationship advice, touching on universal themes of identity, belonging, and personal growth.

Whether you're navigating cultural identity challenges, relationship difficulties, or simply seeking more authentic connections, Patel's advice to "chase after what's uncomfortable" offers a compelling framework for personal transformation. As he explains, "Some of the biggest rewards we get in life come from living through uncomfortability." Ready to fill your emotional buckets and live more authentically? This episode provides both inspiration and practical guidance for the journey.

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Speaker 1:

What's going on everybody? Welcome back to another episode of Surviving the Side Hustle. On today's show here we've got Ronique, an awesome individual that I just got connected with recently, and I was super excited that we were able to get our show off and recording Some issues with myself the other day, and then we got it up on today. We got right into rolling. So I'm excited to have you on, hear a little bit more about your story and what you've got going on too, so I'll turn it over to you man, what have you got going on? Could you introduce yourself to the audience?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no, thank you so much, rob. I mean I'm glad we finally connected, yeah, so thank you so much for having me. By the way, I'm so honored to be here. I mean, you've had some incredible people on this show and so I'm just honored first off. But to give you an idea of who I am, for those of you who don't know, my name is Ronique Patel. I just launched this young adult book called I Am Not your Boy, and just becoming a new author and just sharing my story for young adults, that kind of help strengthen their confidence and their authenticity. I make myself incredibly vulnerable in the book and we can kind of go into that as well. But again, thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 1:

Of course, of course. Well, no, thank you for actually being here and sharing your story and diving us into the book, and congratulations on that too, because I know that's no easy feat. So a lot of work goes into it preparation, the marketing, everything. So I'm excited to have you here and, yeah, I'd love to kind of dive in to hear a little bit more?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no, of course. So I mean, as part of the side hustle, I'm also a full-time pharmaceutical sales rep, so balancing both gigs, as you know, can be kind of challenging. But I will say there is something empowering and rewarding about doing something you're passionate about and giving back to others. I mean, Rob, I'm sure you're well aware of the impact it has when you're able to help others and how great it makes you feel right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So one of the biggest reasons why I wrote this book so I was diagnosed with HIV when I was 19 years old and through that time and over a decade of my life, I've had so many different kinds of situations that came up and turmoils and as time went on and I went through therapy every single week for several years, I realized how to create stronger relationships with both myself and with others, and I see so many people in my community and around me that are facing such similar issues that I went through and I decided to create this self-help book, just really teaching people how to be a more authentic and confident self. Ask for what you're wanting for. Chase after what you truly need, and the four components that we absolutely need to have in our life from an emotional standpoint is love, support, a sense of belonging and trust, and this book is a roadmap and a guide to help you make sure you're getting all four buckets full and be your full, authentic self to you and for relationships.

Speaker 1:

I really like how you also mentioned your relationship with yourself in there In your book, because I haven't had the opportunity to dive into it yet myself, but I'm curious. So it's a tool to kind of guide, but does it help the reader kind of identify where they're at with those different buckets, because you said there were those four buckets. So I imagine some people have fuller buckets and some are a little bit less and some totally empty and across all four of them.

Speaker 2:

Right, right, and it's so important to have that love for yourself, and there's a lot of different areas in the book that helps you target. If you're not getting it for yourself, how do you fulfill that? So like, for example, we can go down a lot of detrimental paths within ourselves that are self-destructive. What are those self-destructive habits and how do you kind of climb out of that? And it's not easy, but it helps you identify those self-destructive habits. What are things from your past that are triggering you to not feel those emotions and how do you climb out of that?

Speaker 1:

That sounds pretty deep and very helpful, because I know everyone's got different traumas and different situations and different thoughts and kind of like that internal thoughts and things, and so I feel like this is a great tool for a lot of people on different levels.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, because when it comes to love and emotions, we all can be little kids, sometimes. Right, we can act that way because we're trying to satisfy this emotional need and sometimes we resort back to our childhood because that's what's comfortable and what we know. And we are able to satisfy a lot of those emotions when we were kids because our parents were helping us with that when we are in adulthood were helping us with that. When we are in adulthood, we are in a different dynamic, we're in a different situation. So that's why it's I am not your boy it's kind of strengthening that inner child in you and just making sure that you're able to be that full, capable adult in your relationships.

Speaker 1:

And so basically everything in the book is what you've kind of learned from going through therapy and just living life and kind of pulling from different sessions and experts and things like that. Right, or is it?

Speaker 2:

yeah, talk to me a little bit about yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2:

I mean I might not have the like. My adversity may be different than anyone else's, right? I mean, my adversity is the fact that I've been the youngest person. In almost every single career or job opportunity, I've always been the youngest person and I've always had to prove myself to people who are much older to show that I should be taken seriously. Um, another adversity I'm Indian.

Speaker 2:

I live in a very I don't want to say white, but a very Americanized community where being Asian, being Indian, can be just a little bit of a stigma. Not that it's bad, it's just kind of calling the elephant in the room, dad. It's just kind of calling the elephant in the room and also being raised by Asian parents, the whole stigma of like you have to always act the way others want you to act. And so I kind of lived through that as well. And lastly it's there are two other things is my HIV status Going into relationships having intimacy with people?

Speaker 2:

I have a different layer of adversity when it comes to having those conversations. Not everyone's going to be accepting of it, right? So how do I navigate all of that? And lastly, I spent over a decade of my life in the gay world because my HIV status, kind of, was telling me I need to be in the space because they're more accepting. After a decade of living in it I realized that is not what actually fit, what I wanted, and I broke out of that and I started dating women again two years ago and I felt more authentic, I felt more myself. So a lot of those adversities helped me create the tools and the research and the knowledge to really help anyone who is young get out of adversity and really fight for their emotional need.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I love that, because how you started that off? Because everybody experiences adversity in their own unique ways and I think everybody needs to experience some form of adversity, otherwise then you fail to kind of develop any kind of resistance or resilience, I should say, and then you're just kind of not really experiencing life to the fullest. But I'm curious, what drove you to writing the book, how come you decided that the book was the perfect channel to deliver your message?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I've done public speeches before and yes, I can target a very specific demographic and crowd and audience. But a lot of the issues I'm writing about and I put into this book are issues that we don't normally deal with with other people. We deal with it by ourselves and privately because it's comfortable, especially when it comes to sex. There's a lot of those issues we don't talk to other people about, even maybe your own therapist, I mean, or your own family members or close friends Like, for example, one of the chapters in this book is about pornography.

Speaker 2:

Those topics aren't really well discussed and there's a lot of stigma around talking about it, and so that way in a book you can have the isolation, you can have that deep dive, you can really just get into yourself and those thoughts and those feelings without judgment and you can really analyze where you are in your life and how do you actually position yourself to be at a better place everybody like a little bit of like a private one-on-one coaching session with you, without actually having to do the whole coaching session, because you can kind of consume the content at your own pace.

Speaker 1:

You can work through the different things that you're kind of talking about in there and in the safe environment of yourself, but also having the expert of a professional or someone who's gone through these different adversities like yourself from the outside. So that's really cool. I never actually thought about it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, exactly, I mean, people know how to reach me and I do take on people for one-on-one counseling. That's usually pretty rare, but I do end up doing that as well, but it really is thought-provoking. It's the way it reads, the way you relate to it, because everyone's story is different, everyone's situation is different, people's interpretation of the book will be different, and so when you're reading an actual book, versus being talked to, you're living in your own mind. You're not living through someone else's thoughts. Right, even though my thoughts are in here, my guidance is in here, I'm not speaking to you without any kind of bias. You're really diving in in your own mind and analyzing what is going on and how do you fix yourself from any kind of negativity.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that brings an interesting question to me. So in the book, how do you write, who are you writing to in the book and how do you keep the I guess the universal themes in the book and the strategies and things? How do you keep that vague enough to cover different adversities and different challenges that people are going through, but still being specific enough in there? So who are you writing the book specifically to, when you were sitting down to actually write it out? Because I know a bunch of listeners are authors or aspiring authors themselves.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no, of course, that's a really great question. A lot of times people ask me when I share parts of myself in it is this a memoir? And it really isn't. I rarely talk about myself in it. I do make myself vulnerable in the book to make you feel more comfortable or the reader more comfortable, to really just sympathize in a sense for themselves, that they could be in a different place. They could be in a worse situation, they could be in a better situation.

Speaker 2:

But the way I'm trying to lay out the text in this is I even say there's parts of this book that may not resonate with you, but I really urge readers to continue reading on because there will be a message that resonates with you, and so the context of the book is heavily based on a lot of research. There's a lot of really big data points in here, and while these statistics may not involve you, they're still prevalent in the community. So whether it's relevant to you, it's relevant to someone they know. So some of the three big statistics in this book that I thought was really surprising, which really pushed me to write this book and get this out. There is one. One out of three relationships in the world are in consensual, open relationships, with a 97% fail rate and 80% of those report jealousy. So, out of all these open relationships, we think it's working, we think they're happy, we think that it's successful, but the statistics show otherwise.

Speaker 2:

Now there could be people who are in those situations and it is working for them.

Speaker 2:

Again, it's statistics, it's not an actual, it's not your specific life. Another statistics over half of young adults between 18 to 34 are in situationships, and situationships are like a vague relationship where there's no defined rules. You guys are exclusive, necessarily, but there's more than just intimacy going on. There's a connection, there's a bond, but what are the dangers of being into that right? And even if you aren't in a situations situation, I'm sure you know people who are and it can help you sympathize for their situation. The last statistic, which is really surprising and we may not realize, because everyone just seems so nice, but over 500,000 predators are online searching daily. So you can be on a dating app, you can be out in person and you may not see the telltale signs of a predator and you're putting yourself at risk and making yourself vulnerable to these people that may not have your best interest at heart. So there's a lot of different messages in there that I that is pretty universal when it comes to young people dating in today's world.

Speaker 1:

Wow yeah, Some of those statistics are pretty wild. It makes you kind of wonder, like, why do? Why do people even continue to think that the open relationship thing is like works? If it's, would you say it was 80% that are somebody is.

Speaker 2:

So it's one out of three people are in an open relationship. I'm talking about just marriages with a 97% fail rate, but I mean a lot of times we see people who are in open relationships and they seem happy because they're communicating with each other and they're able to be open and honest with each other, and, yes, that's a really good indication of a good relationship. But when you peel back the layers and you see what each person is dealing with individually, that may not be realistic, and so they may be perceived as happy, but the statistics show otherwise.

Speaker 1:

So mind going through the flow of the book, the journey you kind of take the reader through, yeah, that's a really great question.

Speaker 2:

So it's broken up into three parts. So the first part is really identifying the key issues in your life, in other people's lives and relationships, and digging into your past and seeing what about your past is triggering certain things. So the first is really identifying those key elements. The second is using that information we learned in the first part and targeting it to you and how to better your relationships again with both yourself and with other people. And then the third part is really encouraging you to chase after it with that really strong confidence and really dig into how you can be fully authentic. So it's almost like the encouraging part of the book. So first is identifying, Second is using that information we identified and then third is strengthening that confidence.

Speaker 1:

Okay, cool. So it's like so yeah, yeah, identifying kind of planning to kind of connect it to everything and then essentially take an action on the, on the last section, right exactly, exactly yeah because not everything in the first part is going to resonate with you.

Speaker 2:

So it's just identifying what parts of the first. What is what about? The first part is identifying to you and using that in the second part to really strengthen it.

Speaker 1:

Okay, yeah, I like that flow For me specifically with a lot of my coaching and all of my different, the six different principles of my coaching program. There's like an underlying theme for most of it and it's typically it's awareness being aware of different challenges that you're taking on, like voluntarily or involuntarily, in your life, and the different things that you're consuming between nutrition and like and content and digital, and then like even bringing awareness and everything else all the way through. There's that underlying tone. So I'd love that you started off with that. And what are some of the things that you bring the reader through to help them kind of identify? Because sometimes I know for myself and some individuals that I work with, we know there's certain things and then there's things that we don't really know also. Right, right.

Speaker 2:

Right and I can't take all the credit I will say recommend getting an editor and just really being uncomfortable with your work just being dissected like that, because once you really create and follow the advice, it makes so much more sense. So having it separated in that segment is great. So, especially when it comes to your own coaching, I'm sure that you've learned throughout time what is more effective, right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, I mean, unfortunately I did a lot of trial and error, so it was a lot of testing out, figuring out what fits, what works well for me, what works well with the clients who get the best results with everything, and then kind of teasing it out and figuring it out and it can be. I imagine going through the editing process with the editor has got to be tough. It's got to be a whole challenge in and of itself with, like your ego and how you want it to kind of go. I know one of my mentors is he's writing his second book and he's already rewritten the entire thing like seven times I think at the time of this recording, and he's like, yeah, dude, the editor is just insane, it's tough. So that's got to be a whole process as well building resilience.

Speaker 2:

The hardest, the harder part people think of when writing a book is writing the book and it's not, it's the editing, and I thought that was the hardest part, but it's because you're right, your ego can get in the way and you have to live in a bit of uncomfortability, but once you do it and you start seeing the end result and the product afterwards, it's like that makes so much more sense because someone else is reading it. You're not reading your own book, someone else is reading it.

Speaker 1:

At that point, Well, so now I got to ask you though the book is written, your life's not over. So what are you? How are you helping with the book and what are you? What are the challenges you're taking on now as an individual?

Speaker 2:

my life out there like that and I struggled with the idea of letting myself be open about my life in this book because it's not a memoir and it's very small parts of the book where I bring up myself in it. But I did find it really important for people to really dive into their own issues when they're reading from someone who's being open with them so it can create themselves to be more open. A lot of the issues I've run into so far is not necessarily how it's perceived, because I think it's very well perceived and people are surprised at how much this book is resonating with them. I've actually had a lot of women find really powerful messages in this book in their own lives because a lot of it is tackling misogyny and sexism.

Speaker 2:

But from the gay community I have been labeled a little bit homophobic not by a lot, but it's only because I dissect hookup culture and it can be a really sensitive topic in the community because they may want to encourage more of a hookup culture, whereas in my book I'm kind of dissecting that.

Speaker 2:

I'm not saying they can't live that life and be embracing of hookup culture, but if it's impacting someone else then it's an issue that should be questioned. But when I look at love in the gay world, people always say love is love is love, and I disagree with that sentiment. It's a beautiful sentiment but I disagree. I think it's my body, is what I choose to do it with my body and I can still give love with it. So that's the only really negative part of the book. It has been tough trying to be open about people that I don't know well and really putting my whole life in front of them, and that's been a little challenging. But I will say once I do like. Every single time I do it. I see this like unwavering support in them for me and it's been really incredible.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I can't imagine what that's like, kind of putting yourself out and into a vulnerable world where people who don't even know you are going to like kind of putting yourself out and into a vulnerable world where people who don't even know you are going to be kind of reading about different parts of your life and at least at the same time also learning from your life and different stories and tips and things that you're sharing in the book too. So it's got to be terrifying and also incredibly rewarding sort of at the same time. So that's like a wild emotion that I'm just kind of thinking about. That's got to be like the epitome of an emotional rollercoaster kind of thing, just knowing that people are taking all those different things away from this product, this book, this tool that you've created for people.

Speaker 2:

Right, because this book really isn't meant for me. I have a great job and I live a great life without this book, but I'm doing it for other people, so I'm making myself incredibly vulnerable to really help the reader just strengthen themselves. So it's a pretty selfless project, I mean. So that's why it's also even more difficult to talk about it, because this isn't exactly my day-to-day life. This isn't my full-time gig. This is a side hustle that I have, right, but I do find a huge impact and voice and power that this book has for the entire community.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I love that and I would love for you to kind of share a little bit on connecting and maybe some communication too, because I know we got connected through a mutual friend and just basically just kind of putting us together. How important is it for you with communicating and how are you branching out to different shows and different things? And how are you taking that on? As another thing, because, you just said it yourself, you still have a full-time job. This is just a side hustle. You're doing all this stuff just for the pure of trying to move your message out to the world. That's got to be crazy too. Where are you getting that drive from and how are you even doing that with all different connections and such?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean I've always been super passionate about helping people. I mean it's why I'm in the industry I'm in, it's why I love being in sales and really empowering people through so many different avenues. I can't believe how many amazing people I've run into during this journey thus far. I mean it's been a little over a month since my book and I'm here sitting and talking with you, for example, right, these strong, powerful, influential, motivating people who want to do really great things, and they're doing it. And I am amazed because sometimes we can fall back into our little bubble of a life and not really see a lot of what's happening out there.

Speaker 2:

But when I have the great luxury of connecting with incredible masterminds who are so motivated, who are so ambitious, who really put themselves out there in so many different kinds of ways, and I see the passion behind people that I haven't always seen before because I was always stuck in my little bubble, so it's been amazing. Throughout networking, it's become very organic and natural. You, you share something with someone. They look, they're like you have to meet this person. That's how you and I met right and it's like it's just the power of the universe and what we circle ourselves in and it's really amazing to see how these networks and relationships flourish when you're in this positive space.

Speaker 1:

So I got to ask you a question. So you're in the. You said pharmaceutical sales is what you do during the day. I guess we should say like your day job kind of. What skills do you feel like from sales transfer over into your side hustle here, Because a lot of people also are coming out with their books and their messages and their things but I don't get to see all of those and their books and their things but you cut through a lot of the different messages and things that I get because of networking and stuff like that. Do you feel like your background with sales and that helps you with your book and the whole process of getting your message out to more and more people?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no, it's a really great question because I actually never mention in the book what I do for work.

Speaker 2:

I always say I've been in corporate America, being the youngest, in almost every corporate setting.

Speaker 2:

So I spent five years in finance and going on six years in the pharmaceutical industry, both in a sales position, and what I've learned is, when it comes to finances, people are super sensitive about their money, so helping them navigate finances has been really impactful and powerful when I stepped into pharmaceuticals.

Speaker 2:

Similar thing People are really sensitive about their health and how do you get them to a really good, healthy place, and having those conversations with doctors for the past six years has been really inspiring because you hear about these patients and you see these patients' lives just get so much better because of your medication or your drug or whatever. But I will say, what motivates me to do pharmaceuticals or finance or writing this book is all just making people as healthy as they can be A healthy finance portfolio, a healthy living situation when it comes to their medications and tackling a lot of their diagnoses. And then now I'm stepping into helping people in their relationships. So all three is yes, it's sales, but I really get to impact someone's life and such a deeper level, and I am so grateful for it.

Speaker 1:

Wow, yeah, I love that you're looking at it from a different lens, different perspective, and I can see that it's clearly helping in all three of those different areas. So that's awesome to look at it like through that way. So, but for those who are listening, how do they get a copy, or two or three? Where do they? Where they check the book out?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, of course. So it is available on Amazon. It's also available at Barnes Noble In-store. I'm working on select stores to get it inside of their bookstore. Now, if you find that your bookstore does not stock it and you would like them to stock it, they can see online and they can get it pulled into their bookstore. And it is available on Amazon. And if you do find it's under I Am Not your Boy by Ronique Patel, write a review, buy a line of hardcover paperback and it's out there for you to check out. An ebook is also available and the audio book should be coming in the next few weeks.

Speaker 1:

Very nice, excited for that. Big audio book should be coming in the next few weeks. Very nice, excited for that big audio book kind of person oh yeah, it's tough recording an audio book. You have to record your own voice doing it and it's really, it's challenging yeah, talking about adversity, a whole other thing is getting over listening to yourself talk, kind of thing oh, I hate myself talking or my voice, but I've gotten used to it.

Speaker 1:

Awesome, alright, cool. So there you go. Everybody, go over to Amazon. Barnes, noble, check it out. Like he said, I Am Not your Boy, it should pop up. I've never heard any other great books like this, so just search it real quick and snag a copy or two, leave a review and reach out on social media. To me, and I guess if Ronique, are you comfortable sharing your social?

Speaker 2:

handles. Yeah, so I do have a handle on Instagram and Facebook at the Ronique Patel. That's where you'll find content of me putting together videos. You'll see some pages and excerpts of the book. You'll see some promotional events that I'm working on. So it's Instagram and Facebook at the Rodique Patel.

Speaker 1:

There you go Time to listen to this. Go, follow him and then share some of your favorite parts of our episode today to let him know that you are listening in. All right, dude, I really appreciate you taking the time. I'm glad we were able to get this in and put together. So thank you. Thank you for sharing such great message and helping so many people in so many different ways too. So I can just tell you're a great individual and you're doing some powerful things and I really appreciate everything you're doing. But before I let you have the last second and we sign off, I got to ask you, from everything that you've learned through your life and through different relationships and sales and all these other things, if you were to help one individual who's looking to kind of level up and get themselves to that next stage whether it is in relationships, or it is in finance, or it is with their health what would be your number one piece of advice for them?

Speaker 2:

You know that's a really great question. I will say chase after what's uncomfortable. Some of the biggest rewards we get in life is living through a lot of uncomfortability, and some of the biggest rewards of life are the most rewarding because you did the work. So putting in the work being uncomfortable but just being driven enough to do it, I tell you it's so rewarding and you've seen so many people on your show, rob, where people have created this kind of platform and energy and motivation by going through a lot of those uncomfortabilities. Right.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, wow. I love that because I'm always telling everybody to push their comfort zones and do the different things that get them uncomfortable. So I hold that true to my personal values in life, so I love that you shared that Again. I appreciate it so much. Thank you for coming on, sharing your message. Everybody listening. Make sure you go grab those books, those copies, and give us a follow on social media Again. Thank you so much, man.

Speaker 2:

Rob, thank you so much for having a platform for people like me and so many other driven people have a voice and be able to speak to you, because you have so many amazing coaching experiences and you have so many amazing people that come across your way. So I'm really grateful to be speaking with you today. So thank you.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I appreciate that, thank you. Thank you All right guys. That's all we got for this week's episode. I'll catch you guys next week.

Speaker 2:

Take care.