Left for Dead, Raised by Hustle: How to Win When Life Breaks You! Feat. Tiki Davis

0:00This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy. Just drop in some details about yourself and see if you're eligible to save money when you bundle your home and auto policies. The process only takes minutes, and it could mean hundreds more in your pocket. Visit Progressive.com after this episode to see if you could save. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states. Rinse takes your laundry and hand delivers it to your door, expertly cleaned and folded, so you could take the time once spent folding and sorting and waiting to finally pursue a whole new version of you, like tea time you.

0:43Mmm. Or this tea time you. Or even this tea time you. So did you hear about Dave? Or even tea time, tea time, tea time you. Mmm. So update on Dave. It's up to you. We'll take the laundry. Rinse. It's time to be great.

1:04This is The Ed Myron Show. Welcome back to the show, everybody. So, a while back, maybe about a year ago, I heard a story from my friend John Gordon about a man's life. And I made a mental note at that time. I said, that story is going to be told on my show and millions of people are going to hear it because millions of people need to hear this story. And it's going to grip you. It's going to bring you in right away in the beginning of this interview. And I don't think you're ever going to forget it. And I think the lessons you're going to learn from this man about that story are going to change your life.

1:37And so I actually asked him to come in person today because I wanted to feel the story man to man, heart to heart, face to face. And so my guest today was stabbed in the neck when he was nine years old, locked up in jail when he was 18, actually in jail, as I understand, at the same time as his mother. I'm going to let you tell the story, but my guest today is the very jacked up with a shmedium shirt on, just kidding, XL shirt on, Tiki Davis. Welcome to the show. Man, I'm glad to be here. Thank you, Ed. Yeah, it's so good to have you. All right, let's go all the way back. You're here because of a story, well, multiple stories in your life, but take us back to your upbringing because I think a lot of people, why do I want you on?

2:20A lot of people are going through something right now in their life or a hardship or a trauma that they think is pretty significant and they don't know the path out you do because you made the path out and yours is dramatic right so should we start at nine is that about the right place to start we can start it now let's start a little bit before that okay let's set it up the stage and see why i got stabbed in the neck okay so 12 years old this young girl was having sex her father found out she was having sex so he said if you're going to have sex you might as well get paid for it so her father turned her into a prostitute as she got older she was 16 17 working at a hospital in Amarillo Texas and she was having sex her main custom was the head physician at the hospital then she was also having unprotected sex with her pimp named Ramsey this young girl gets pregnant she's hoping the baby's her pimps because she's in love with this guy he's a tall black guy with an afro but she has the baby the physician delivers the baby the baby comes out half black half white so now the request my mom has with this physician tie my tubes i don't want to have any more kids so this lady that you're describing is your mom and you are that half black half white baby no that's my brother okay all right but it is your mom it is my mom okay so but she doesn't want to have any more kids so the guy ties her tubes fires her from the hospital hope to never see her again okay so she goes straight back to work as a prostitute the guy that's my father he's in jail in prison serving seven years so when my dad gets out of prison he finds out that his girlfriend that he had has had a baby and not only had a baby it's a white baby oh my gosh now he's jealous and he's begging her to have a kid for him and she says frank i can't have any more kids my tubes are tied and so he begs and begs her to untie her tubes whoa and she said i don't want any kids but she does it anyway has a baby two months after i'm delivered she calls my dad and says come get your son i didn't want no more kids you did oh my gosh see i didn't know this part of the story oh my gosh so my dad wow 25 years old, he comes to Andrew, Texas, picks me up, takes me to his mother because he doesn't know how to raise a kid.

4:42And my grandmother, Hattie Ward, takes me in, open arms, not because she loved me so much. She had a debt to pay to her own son because she gave him away at birth. What did you just you talk about generational trauma in a family? Yes. Okay, just piece it together. Brother's born, half black, half white. Mom's a prostitute. It turns out it's not the pimp, it's the doctor. Then dad, who's in prison, gets out of prison, says, I want a kid. She unties her tubes, doesn't want to. You're born. Right. She gives you away within two months. I'm not laughing. I'm just blown away. Yeah. Two months, and then your dad can't raise a kid, so you go to your grandmother.

5:24Your grandmother only does this because she gave your dad away. Right. Yeah, true story. I can't make this up. So now I live with my grandmother from two months old to three years old. And guess who comes looking for me at three years old? Mom or dad? Mom. Mom. So she comes to look for me because back in early 80s, when you went to the welfare office, you got to have proof of your kids. So mama needed proof of her two kids to get this check. And my brother was given to her mother. so she ain't raised any of her kids they've been two different places so now it gets tricky so she comes to artesia new mexico where i was living with my grandmother to pick me up she's one of her dates she had married this guy named murphy young pulls up in this yellow lincoln cloth seats in the back right and she sits me and i knew she was my mom for some reason i knew that was my mom even though i never met her but i like that's my mama but check this out it gets weirder right she gets me sits me in the back seat and she looks over and say there's your brother oh my god first time i seen a white person oh my god so your brother visually looks white than black yes which makes sense that you're not the mixed baby because you don't know right oh my life yeah yeah and so that's how i met my brother wow and then we go to odessa texas and that's when my life starts spiraling out of control because now i'm living with mama and now grandma uh just curious those years when you were the grandma was she a loving grandmother yeah oh yeah oh she was a great man.

6:53That's why I love breakfast. That's my favorite meal of the day is breakfast because she used to make me oatmeal, cream of wheat, biscuits, eggs, and that good old grandma smell. I love her too. She passed away about 10 years ago at 84. You're a grown man, but you almost have a... Anyone ever tell you this before? You're a strong man. He's gigantic, you guys. You almost have the spirit in the face of a little boy still. You ever heard that before? I get that. I had to put these braces back on my teeth. One of my teeth was getting crooked so i had him when i was 34 i'm 46 now you look so young i wonder if there's some like you didn't have a childhood so god's gonna make you look like a young person for the rest of your life with that's one of the blessings of this horror story so far okay so now you now are with your brother and your mom right and we're not even to the nine-year-old incident no no no so we're growing up in the projects and now once mom gets the benefits she sends us back with grandma wow and so now me and my brother always grew up thinking that my grandma loved him more and mom loved me more why because we were kids we didn't understand really what was going on so my brother had lived with my grandma his whole life so she had the means to take care of him but when I came on I was extra I was another mouth to feed so me and my brother would overhear conversations my grandmother my mom arguing about money and my grandma would say to my mom hey I got enough for kevin i don't have enough for tiki and so my mom would always come and bring money for me and not my brother or bring clothes for me and not my brother because he was already taken care of gosh it's horrible you see what i'm saying so me and my brother was thinking hey my mom loves me and my brother was thinking mom don't love him because i'm white or something wow and by the way i'm just piecing something together so you were living with this brother not knowing he was your brother until she tells you in the back of the car is that right no i wasn't living with my brother because we were at two different homes i was in new mexico with my dad's mom he was living in odessa with my mom's mom there's a different grandmother yeah different grandmother oh my god so when when i meet my first white person is my brother in the back seat oh my gosh and that's the first time we met he's five i'm three oh my gosh okay so okay one of the crazier story and by the way when i introduced you i knew about 60 of this story it was already one of the best stories i've ever heard in my life when i say best it's best because of who's sitting in front of me now.

9:14I certainly would never want someone to go through that. But you are proof that you can transcend your environment. You can overcome your circumstances. You are living proof of this. And we're going to talk about some of those keys and strategies. By the way, everybody should know this. Tiki is an inspirational, motivational speaker as well. These stories on stage even come to a life in a different way than what we're doing right now. So I want to make sure that at the end when I send you to find him that you guys know that he does this as well. Because it's it's it's going to be a movie we're already talking about that but i get the movie on my show first which is really cool so okay probably let's get to what happens at nine because that's the beginning of the story i knew i didn't even know any of this okay okay and so my mom's a prostitute that's her means you know to a job and other than being a prostitute the only job i knew my mom had she'd ring the bell for the salvation army i had it for a walmart home goods things like that so mom got sloppy one night with this date and we only have one key to the house so I went home that night it was dark my mom and aunt had robbed this guy a Hispanic man so I'm laying in bed getting ready for bed I hear footsteps coming down the hallway I'm not afraid but it's this Hispanic the Spanish guy comes and asks where's your mama and I'm looking I don't know where she is she's in the flats and the flats was where all the black people hung out and then before I know what he said she stole my money and i'm thinking okay and then he wrapped the bandana around my neck oh my god strangling me you know left to right i'm this little you're a little boy yeah i'm nine years old he's strangling me and then he finally lets me go and then he stabs me in the neck with a screwdriver then he puts a pillow over my face ed started beating me beating me beating me beating me and only reason I was able to survive is because I decided to fight for my life but the only reason I did is because my mom used to give me a whooping and I would run from her so that's the only way I was able to escape this guy so I slide down the wall roll up under the bed so he's moving the bed left to right flipping it over but I'm stuck up under the bed because my mom would give me whoopings and that's where I would go so nobody could get me from up under that bed and so I'm fighting for my life I'm bleeding I don't even know my life's in danger really i just know this man's attacking me gosh and only thing that i remember because everybody said tiki do you remember what the guy looked like yeah i do i remember the bottom of his blue jeans and his snake skin boots because you're looking at it from under the bed under the bed and then finally the guy panics and run away think i'm gonna die whatever and when i hear the back door slams i decide to get up i roll from up under the bed and my mom used to have this hatchet on the stairs and the projects and for a defense mechanism and it was right there and i'm thinking to myself I'm glad he didn't find that.

11:57And I'm holding my neck. I'm bleeding. Oh, my gosh. My brother's next door playing Atari video games. I'll go over there and knock on the door. The lady name was Linda Faye. And she had an old drunk uncle named HL. And my brother and him answered the door. And I walk in and I fall in my brother's arm bleeding to death everywhere. And everybody in the hood is screaming, ah. You know, everybody's screaming. And they think that my mom's ways caught up to her. And I got murdered. Oh, my gosh. Okay, I have to pause here for a second. Maybe this is the most compelling story I've ever had said right here in front of me on the show.

12:33I don't want to say anything about other guests. We've got some great stories. But this is a wow. Okay, so what happened? So you're bleeding. Are you bleeding to death? Yeah, I'm bleeding to death. I'm bleeding to death. They called the ambulance. And this old guy named H.L. He worked at Odessa America. He was a newspaper guy. And he says, put a Band-Aid on it. He was drunk. So anyway, they called the ambulance. It's crazy. Just like the movie, they got me on the stretcher. And this is this is the most realist thing that I ever really happened in my life that that I'm true. I never snitched on my mom.

13:05So I'm on the stretcher. Police is there. My mom rose up on the scene because they told I got murdered. But she wanted to come see for herself. I'm on the stretcher getting in the ambulance. My mom runs up. She don't say, are you OK, baby? Nothing. She said, don't tell him nothing. She says, don't tell him nothing. and so i kept that in my head whoa so now we go to the hospital i don't know if i'm gonna die or nothing but whatever my mom said cold of the streets don't snitch don't say nothing it was in the back of my head so it's the detective named detective price after they banded me up a couple days later he comes and say boy what happened what happened i said man somebody tried to break in our house and rob us and he goes nobody robs the projects but i just said hey that's it and And so for three or four days, no one showed up but that detective.

13:52Fourth day, mama shows up. Wait, your mother didn't come visit you? No, because she thought I was going to break or whatever. Oh, she's going to get arrested if she shows up because you've told the story. Right. So now I'm there and then she shows up and she comes in and she sits on the edge of the bed and she's crying. Oh, baby, I'm so sorry. And now me being a little boy started comforting the mom. Mama, don't cry. it's going to be okay. And mama said, I'm so sorry, baby. I'm so sorry. And in my heart, I forgave my mama in that moment. I never held a grudge. And so after that time, I want to know why my mama was crying.

14:35So I got up and she said, baby, look. And I looked in the mirror and my head was about four or five times the normal head of a nine-year-old boy. Knots and bruises. my eyes the pupils it was you could see the black where the white was it was red like all blush I completely no white and I remember when I got out of the hospital I couldn't go to school anymore I was in the second grade so all my second grade uh I just barely found this out a few months ago a girl her name is Keisha Robinson she was my neighbor in the project and she was also in my class and she said that everybody in my class second grade class thought I had died my gosh Because I didn't go to school for a few months because I was so jacked up.

15:18And I remember that eye doctor, when we went to that specialist, the eye doctor told my mom, she says, I never seen an eye condition this bad. If the medication don't work where his eyes clear up, we're going to have to scrape his eyeballs. Oh, my gosh. So I was a little boy thinking, I don't want my eyeballs scraped. This may sound really weird, but I'm sitting here with this grown, jacked man. I want to just hug this little boy. like it's just it's staggering what you're describing right now yeah the other thing that strikes me as i'm listening to you is like god made this articulate brilliant intellectually gifted uh amazing storytelling young boy who's going through this right trauma like on the other side of pain by the way and the pain hasn't ended yet guys we're we're just getting started yeah the pain there's this amazing human being right and that anybody listening to this like whatever you're going through compared to what by the way and the other thing i think of is there's some other little boy right now somewhere going through the same type scenario that how how many people need our help you know i mean i think about that all the people going through something like what you're describing which the way that i was raised uh-huh this isn't even fathomable right and i thought i had it bad with a drug addict dad and an alcoholic dad in a safe home right where we had food on the table.

16:38My mother was not doing any of the things your mom was doing. And there was love. He had no love. I just stepped back for a second and go, my gosh. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. Smart choice. Progressive loves to help people make smart choices. That's why they offer a tool called Auto Quote Explorer that allows you to compare your Progressive car insurance quote with rates from other companies. So you save time on the research and can enjoy savings when you choose the best rate for you. Give it a try after this episode at Progressive.com.

17:21Progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates. Not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy.

17:33So imagine it's midnight, you're on the couch, you're scrolling through this new website, hitting the add to cart button, and you decide to check out, but you remember that your wallet or your credit card is in the other room and you don't want to get off the couch. That's okay. You don't need to because there's that big iconic purple shop button. You know the one. With that shop button, that's Shopify. And there's a reason that so many businesses sell with it because it makes everything easier from checkout to creating your own storefront. Shopify is the commerce platform behind 10 % of all e-commerce in the U.S., from household names like Mattel and Gymshark to brands that are just getting started.

18:11Shopify will give you a leg up from the beginning with beautiful, ready-to-go templates to express your brand. And you don't need to know how to code. You can handle everything in one place, from inventory to payments to analytics. And they've got built-in marketing and email tools and that iconic purple ShopPay button used by millions of businesses around the world. If you want to see less carts being abandoned, it's time for you to head over to Shopify. Sign up for your one month,$1 per month trial period and start selling today at shopify.com slash paula. Go to shopify.com slash paula. Shopify.com slash paula.

18:50So these injuries are pretty significant. Right. You eventually heal and recover from this. But let's just be real. you've now grown up with programming and patterns and an environment that is not set up right for a young man to make good decisions up until adulthood to be honest with you the reason i became the successful entrepreneur that's all i know millionaire everybody oh yeah we did that 12 years ago yep so the thing about me making money like i tell everybody it's not arrogant it's not cocky it's just i all i had was me my life basically been locked out by all purposes so at 12 years old i think that's the last time i ever asked for money i was selling candy door to door at 12 years old because and this is another thing how i ended up in the boys home i'm selling candy door to door and i used to save my money at home i'm living with mom at this time we're living in an apartment somewhere else she's still in the same occupation occupation same thing robbing, stealing, drugging.

19:51She just says he's three years later. We get evicted from that first project because HUD says once you have a police involved, domestic violence, you get kicked out of the program. So we're living somewhere else. So what I would do every day, I would sell candies door to door for this thing called West Texas teens. And for every box of candy I sell, I get a dollar bill. So I would sell 25 after football practice, after school. And I used to stash the money at home so one day i come home i think i had 380 saved up at 12 years old i come home i'm putting some more in my stash mama hit me she hit me for my whole 380 and i'm sick and because she was asking me for money that days early and i like no i'm saving for my school club i wouldn't give her any and then i go around the corner her and her friends are drinking having a party with my money so i went around there and this is the only time i ever really kind of cussed at my mom i said did you steal my effing money and she goes nah what are you talking about she denied it and i just hid around the corner and this lady that was drinking a beer part of me she said did you take that boy's money she goes yeah i took it but he ain't gonna talk to me like that i'm his money i got a hundred left i was gonna give it to him then i just went back around and i said you know what mom i said mama man go on and keep it i'm gonna go get some more so from that day on i would carry my money in my pocket like to school so now i would go i'm in the seventh grade at crockett junior high i would take my money to school and i would flash it sometime or get something and they're like dang tiki what are you doing and i said i sell candy made it to the principal yeah i think it's a different candy right you're 100 correct so they called me to the principal's office i'm already on juvenile probation okay understand i had my probation off his name is Gary Speed.

21:34So I go to the principal's office. They said, Tiki, what are you doing all this money? I said, I sell candy after school. They said, who's your pusher? I said, he's a guy named Eddie. I says, okay. So they call my probation officer. They come in. We have this meeting. They said, Tiki, what are you doing all this money? And I said, Gary, he was my probation. I said, I don't know if you know it or not. I said, how many days in a week it is? He says, it's seven. I said, I'm by myself for five. So I need this money to take care of myself. And I got to bring it to school. If I leave it at home, mama's gonna steal it they wait till after school they said when your pusher pick you up i said he's picks us up after school in his little van so after school they wait for the guy to pick us up and they ambush his van and they open up all the boxes and it was candy so gary my probation officer he says tiki you can't live like this you can't sell candy you can't do this he said what do you Think about the boys home.

22:28I said, what boys home? He said, is Buckner group home. He says, you don't have to sell candy. You get an$8 allowance. You get your own room with some other boys. You can't live like this. You want to go in? And I said, yeah, let's go in. And that's when my life started to change. When I went into the boys home. Okay. This is bananas. I have, by the way, my first career out of college is I worked in a group home. Okay. I worked at McKinley home for boys. And that changed my life being with those boys. Yes. And stories, yours is the most extreme. But stories like that, having boys in my home whose own fathers had sexually assaulted them, or father and uncle, and seeing what these young boys had gone through in their life and just thinking the chances from there, if they don't start learning new patterns, new decisions, new thoughts of their lives not repeating.

23:18Because you know what I was thinking the whole time you were describing your mom? I don't know. I'm sure you've thought about it. What happened to your mom when she was a little girl? Do you know what I mean? Like what caused her to turn into what she ultimately turned into? Have you ever given any consideration of that? Here's the deal. A lot of people, when I share the story, I just really started sharing it like six, seven years ago when I got into the speaking. I love my mom unconditionally like no other. I never loved anybody like I love my mom but my daughter and my granddaughter now. Like my mom, she was my number one.

23:49I loved her to the end. And I'll get into that a little later on in the story. but she had a rough life yeah she had to have but check this out the grandmother i was telling you about i didn't really want to confuse the story yeah but my mom had five siblings and her birth mother gave her and her five siblings and only kept the sixth kid because he was a boy and she was in love with the man so my mom birth mother gave five of my mom's siblings and herself away away so this sort of starts to kind of explain your mother's trauma right and in every family I always say there's the one where it stops.

24:24Right. And they become the one that changes everything. Clearly, you're the one in your family. I mean, obviously, I just want to acknowledge you, brother. Everyone wait for the rest of this. But what you've turned into, multimillionaire, speak around the world, unbelievable book coming out called The Tiki Fact that you can preorder, by the way, right now. Yes. But it's just incredible. And we're going to talk about some of the strategies in a minute, everybody. But the story actually isn't done. What did you get? I'm curious. What did you get at the group home? that so helped you, I guess, short term compared to what you weren't getting in your own home?

24:56Well, Ed, at 12 years old, that was the first time that I knew when I went to school, all our belongings weren't going to be sitting on the side of the street. So what I got from the group home was stability. First time I knew I was going to have three meals a day. I knew I was going to get$8 at the end of the week because I stayed out of trouble. I knew I was going to be able to play video games. I knew I was going to get to hang with the other kids. And I didn't have the stress of a grown man. I was just going to have the ability to live normal. And so that's what I got from the group home was stability.

25:26Did anything in the group home when I was when I worked in the group home, everyone that's actually worked in it. You sounds like you were in one like what I was into, like a pretty significant one. One of the things I used to worry about with my boys, this has nothing to do with your story. I'm just curious. Yeah. Was there was always a boy that was the alpha in the group home. And every once in a while, he was the one who kind of corrupted or messed up the other little boy. so it wasn't their family anymore it was this alpha who like in our group home frankly some of these sexual assaults that would take place was from this i know his name i won't say but like one boy that was in there yeah would almost hurt the other boys in there right did you ever have to defend yourself against was there like a dude in there or was it just a you got blessed that this was a good group of dudes you ended up with yeah it was a good group of guys uh if anybody was the alpha it was me it was you i was always the leader and then it was always like a rivalry you I was always bumping head with the other guy that wanted to be aligned.

26:21Like, you're in the jungle. I'm aligned. You're aligned. Let's see, Amano, Amano. So it was a guy named Roderick Luke from Lubbock. Your name recognition is incredible, by the way, of your life. Yeah. And so Roderick, me and him would go back at it because I was eighth grade. He was ninth grade. And I was the new boy in. So everybody kind of liked him. But when I came in, I had that thing when you walk in a room, it's called command presence. That's right. And what people say, I don't know who that guy is, but he's somebody. and so I've always had that even as a young boy to a man to whatever when he walks in a room or you walk on stage oh that's him you definitely have that right when I walked in the studio he was here before me guys yeah and right away I mean it's not your guns it's not your physicality it's a presence yeah and that's what I've always had and you know sometimes it helps me and sometimes I put a target on my back yep yeah and sometimes it's intimidating and off-putting to certain people too right okay so things go good in the group home but then you're locked up at 18 Yeah.

27:13So what turned? What happened? Because everyone, and then is it accurate that your mom was incarcerated at the same time? Yeah, yes, yes. Not in the same place. Same place. Oh, my God. Come on. You end up incarcerated in the same facility as your mother. Yes. So here it is at 17. This story is amazing. Yeah, so at 17, I'm finally trying to live this dream of being a football star at my local high school. And that was all over as quick as it started because I was accused of a crime. okay and i go to jail okay but i'm at the county jail yeah you're being held yeah so when i go in there everybody wants a visitor right yep but my visit was my mama and so the sheriff and the powers that be knew my mama and knew me and so instead of waiting on the visitor they took me right to her they did okay yeah that's just bro i i don't even know how to explain this i i don't even know can you as you tell it like is there a part of you that's like outside your body almost right now like i can't even believe this is my story no um now hindsight like i said like when people you're proofreading the book you know with the editor and when i when i dive back into it it's hard for me to read my own story again because now i don't live that life anymore and i'm like dang how did i make it yes because when you look back and you see all the trauma and everything because when you're going through it it's just normal right because you don't know nothing different and so when i go in and visit my mom and i never shared to him i'm sure it on your stage right now.

28:41When my mom, when I went in my, asked my mom, I like, mom, you know, I didn't do what they said I did. She says, boy, do you got AIDS? She asked me if I had AIDS. Really? Because she thought being around white women or white people, you can get AIDS. Oh my God. And I was like, no, mom, I don't have AIDS. I didn't, I didn't do nothing. And she says, well, I love you, son. And she couldn't really help me because she was on her way to prison for murder. yeah so she went to prison for murder i was going in there for what i was charged for she went to prison for murder and so before she caught the chain to go to prison for murder we had that conversation and that's the last time i've ever seen her tiki i've been doing this a long time i've been speechless like three times ever on the show yeah i didn't know that yeah oh it gets it gets worse okay so we have that conversation she hugs me i said i love you mom she said i love you too but she's 37 i'm 17 she can't really compass in to help me because she's dealing with her own life she goes to prison i get out of jail uh bond out uh my football careers wiped away because i have to start my senior year at the alternative school yeah so So this whole dream, I'm watching someone else score my touchdowns.

30:06I'm waiting. You know, I see their name in the paper and I'm hurt by this. As soon as football season over, I go back to my high school when basketball season. I'm like an outcast. I was this big star and everybody's looking at me like, man, what happened to you? What happened? And then I go to school for about a month. Then I go to court. When I go to court, my lawyer tell me, Tiki, they're offering you five years in prison. Five years. I'm 18 now. Five years in prison. He says, but I think we go to court and they see all the evidence and they see that young lady and see what she looks like. Ain't nobody going to send you to prison.

30:40And so we go into the courtroom. Court's supposed to start at nine o 'clock, 915, 930, 945. Nobody shows up but the judge and us. 945, 955. the prosecutor and the alleged victim mom shows up falls out in the courtroom drunk oh my gosh and so at that time boop mistrial and then but then that lady started screaming so the judge called us to the back and the lawyer that i had they says okay let's give them deferred adjudication probation for 10 years and the judge said if you stay out of trouble for 10 years this goes away like it never happened that's the best deal we can have and then the girl's mom screamed i want him to go to prison and he goes all right i'll send him to prison for 120 days and then when you get out you do your probation then my lawyer said no we can't do that if he goes to prison he's an ex-con so that deferred probation don't work then he goes you're right so judge said you go to jail for six months so in the middle of my senior year i went to jail for six months jail not prison i never been to prison i just went to jail and so the the people in the community kind of knew i got a raw deal so this is why like god has always came in my life like earth angels and helped me so this particular time i would have school every day at the jail the teachers would come they would bring me my work and i would do school and i did that for six months and then i got out and i would tell all those inmates and other people in the jailers because i always had this confidence i said when i get out here i'm going to college when i get out here i'm going to the nfl and they would laughed they said tiki no one's getting out of here i said i'm different but the reason i'm sitting on your show today i just didn't say i was different i had to prove prove it so i receive a call on the other end it's my mom and i haven't spoke to her for seven years since i was that young boy and we had that conversation and everybody knew i wasn't going to the nfl anymore except my mom because i wasn't playing football so i had to break the news to her and i said i got some good news and some bad news.

32:47She said, well, give it to me. I said, well, the bad news is I don't play football anymore. I'm not going to the pros. She says, that's not so bad. What's the good news? I said, well, mom, I'm gonna be the first person to graduate college. I graduate with my degree in May. And she says, I'm excited. She says, I also have some good news. I said, what is it? She says, I just made parole and I'm going to be there. And I said, when do you get out? She says, I get out January the 6th. I need you to pick me up in San Angelo, Texas with a windsuit. And she says, lastly, son, I need you to send me$40 She says, because I'm working in the kitchen And my feet have swelled up so much I can't bend over and tie my shoes So I need the Velcro snap shoes And I said, yes, ma 'am She says, the next thing I need,$40 for my medical report When I get out, I need some help, I'm a little sick I said, yes, ma 'am And she says, lastly, son, before I hang up I need you to expect the call from the warden She'll let me know where the property's delivered and stuff like that and I said yes ma 'am and make sure everything's on schedule for me and I said yes ma 'am and so just like clockwork I'm in East 11th in Odessa and I get a call from the warden of the prison and it's a female warden she says this Tiki Davis I said yes she says I just want to let you know that Karen has expired I said I know she said you're going to be calling I know her time's up I know it expired she said son you don't understand what do you want to do about barrier arrangements so on January the 6th instead of picking up my mom from a bus station I was in Huntsville Texas having a funeral at that time I felt like I was invincible my mom was an invincible person but at that time I really felt like I could die for the first time because my mom passed away and I didn't really understand I just didn't know how to process your mom dying and I ain't seen her so long so I wasn't really missing her presence but I just knew I was never going to see her again so when she was in prison it was always a thought in my mind that I would see her again but when I seen her and I went down there and I identified the body she was 280 pounds real black real dark and I couldn't recognize her and when I finally knew it was her I looked at her hand where she used to shoot drugs she had this wep and i knew it was her and i fell out and i cried man and it hurt me real bad because she had died and i felt like i was gonna die because she died and that's the kind of last time i seen her we had a funeral the next day and uh the prisoners at huntsville They made a May shift casket and she's buried at the Huntsville graveyard.

35:30And that's that's pretty much it, man. And I remember we're doing the funeral and some of the inmates was carrying her to a grave. I remember taking out running and I pushed one of the inmates out the way and I carried my mom to her grave. Me and three other pallbearers, which were lifers at Huntsville. I was I hadn't graduated yet. I was in my senior year of college and I wasn't going to graduate till May. she had passed away in January, December the 31st of 2001. When I graduated with my bachelor's degree, I stayed in school because I couldn't find work. And so I ended up working on my master's degree.

36:10When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans, Send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom's 60th. And never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with end-to-end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp. Message privately with everyone. Learn more at whatsapp.com. Abercrombie Kids knows how to make outfitting easy. Mix and match sets are their ultimate outfit hack for fall. Their sweatshirts and sweatpants are super cozy. And they always have the cutest colors and patterns.

36:51Shop Fall's easiest outfit at Abercrombie Kids in the app, online, and in stores.

37:05Tell them what happened. By the way, I'm going to give you guys the post now, what his life's turned into. And then he said earlier, how did I become this? But he actually has how he became it. So then we're going to talk about some of the strategies and the patterns and tactics that you could be taking to change your life as well. and this is an extreme story but just tell them give them that was all the before i guess we'll call it the before yeah what's happened over the next 20 years of your life 20 25 years like just give them an idea of where you sit today okay so where i sit today i'm a two-time college graduate i went to school got my bachelor's my master's in 03 and 05 um started in the oil business so where i'm from oil is big so my first job i started as a field engineer in 2007 making$13 an hour with two degrees.

37:51So I worked for that company for about three years, and I learned everything, and I became the most requested engineer in the Permian Basin, whereas there's not a lot of black engineers. And this independent number one oil man in the world, Clayton Williams Jr. in Midland, Texas, he gave me an opportunity to consult on his wells. And within a five-year period, I took that$13 an hour to over a million dollars a year he was paying me wow and not only was the best i became the best engineer in the world so the consultants at that time when i first started ed they were making four hundred dollars a day when i stopped i was making thirty two hundred dollars a day every single day a day every single day for eight years you see that's how i made my money yep and so now you're by that time you're now a millionaire yes then you've invested and multiplied that money yes many times yes so the The fast forward becomes this.

38:47You basically go from being in jail with your mom, who then goes away to prison for, you haven't seen her since? Right, no. For murder. You end up turning that into a$13 an hour job, into becoming a multimillionaire. And by the way, I really sought after speaker, author, and a movie coming out about his life. So if he can do all that. By the way, how did he do it? So we're going to talk about that because we've got some time. I want to go through some of the stuff that you recommend in the book because you do know how you did it. Right. And there's things that you talk about in the book. let's get into these tiki factor principles because i think that's the bedrock of what's happened here in your life okay so when i'm on stage as you know i travel i'm the tiki factor and after i share that crazy story how did you overcome that adversity how do we do it in our life i'm glad you asked so my name is spelled t-i-k-i the t stands for total commitment i challenge that person to make a total commitment to your life your hopes and your dreams the next thing is the I imagination live from your imagination and not your history because none of us are our history the next thing is K kindred spirits the people around us affect us depending on who they are and what they do is going to affect us in that type of way and the last I invest in yourself those are the tiki factors principles of life and you apply them to your life you'll win and you can't win today's game I totally agree with you I have a whole chapter in my book on imagination versus history and I say the people that are the most successful and the happiest operator of their imagination that is outstanding and so those are my principles and that's what i leave every talk with one of the things that happens when you grow up the way you did is you develop belief systems that don't serve you right systems about people belief systems about how to get ahead belief systems against what is stacked in your favor or against you we just we form beliefs when we're young absolutely you're in an environment that just fed you almost nothing that would be good about beliefs to have about how to treat other people about love about all that stuff right and in the book there's a there's a part of the book where you talk about developing a core belief right right and this is something most people it's invisible to most people most people don't know you have a core belief primer uh tony robbins and his events refers to it like as a primary question you ask yourself but you have a global belief about yourself or life that dictates most of the terms of your life and for many of you listening to it right now it's invisible and you're oblivious to it.