#105: Marshal Crews: The Day My Mom Died, and My Purpose Was Born… (4k)

0:00Marshal Crews, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. This is wonderful. This is beautiful. Beautiful set you have put together. How important is creativity in your life? Creativity is the reason I roll out of bed every day. Creativity is one of the few natural things that gives me dopamine. And I believe it exists within the kind of like passion area of my purpose. I believe purpose is, you know, is kind of like a dynamic combination of, you know, passion, proficiency, and, you know, the ability to solve a problem. And I feel like my creativity gives me the opportunity to solve problems in a proficient way and an efficient way that, you know, does so and helps other people.

0:54and it fulfills me. It makes me happy. It makes me feel, you know, like I've done something. You know what I mean? So creativity is of utmost importance in my life. When you say it fills the passion piece of your purpose, unpack purpose a little bit for me and why you've split it up into different categories. For me, purpose is a lot of, I think the common perception of purpose is kind of like a static objective, you know, an objective that we reach or achieve And I believe purpose to be more of a fluid dynamic, right? It's more of a state of being. And that state of being is defined by the combination of, you know, passion, proficiency, and the ability to solve a problem.

1:39I believe it is pulled from a Japanese concept called Ikigai. And Ikigai consists of four components. And I can't, I don't, those four, I believe those four components are, what do you love? What are you good at? Does the world need it? And does it make money? And for me, the money part of that is kind of out of the equation. Like, yes, money is good. Money is a tool, right? But for me, it's more about what I love, what I'm good at, and what problem it solves. Does the world need it? Is it a reason to exist? So for me, sitting in that kind of dynamic of like, okay, doing something that I love doing, that I'm good at doing, that also helps people.

2:25That is where my purpose lies. And I believe that's kind of like why when I think about creativity and my purpose and how it relates, I think, okay, you know, passion is a huge part of that. And then proficiency, using creativity specifically in an arena that you feel you are well equipped to use it and then using it for something that does some good for other people or the world in general. Yeah. Purpose isn't a destination. It's not something we can arrive at. In fact, how horrifying is the thought of arriving at it because then you have nothing to strive towards? I don't think purpose is something that you ever achieve.

3:08If anything, it gets more powerful the closer you get towards it because you get more clear on what you like and what you don't like. But thinking that it's some destination that we, you know, arrive at is wanting a lie. Because I think even if that would be the case, that would be a very unfulfilling place to be because then what's next? Yeah. Not only is it unfulfilling, but it's discouraging. It's discouraging to, you know, feel you've never arrived and feel that you, you know, aren't there. But when you're there, you're there right now. You're here. I'm here right now. You're here right now.

3:44And that is wherein, you know, lies your purpose. So I think that, you know, understanding that is really, really, really important, specifically when, you know, pulling fulfillment from life and like, you know, seeking fulfillment specifically. specifically. Do you think that's a big reason why you dropped out of college to start a clothing brand? Yes, for sure. I believed that college was just a poor use of my time. I felt I possessed skills and gifts that were better used off campus. And I felt that spending my time working towards something that I knew would not guarantee me fulfillment, happiness, or security financially was just a poor use of time.

4:32And it's not a poor use of time for everyone. I believe some people need that structure. I believe that some people need, you know, the world needs doctors, right? And in terms of careers that require very, very semantic mechanical knowledge, it is a huge necessity. But for me specifically, my way of doing things is very fluid and it's not one way or another and it never will be, which is why I believe creative endeavors, you know, are most suited to me. And I believe that, you know, they're for most people who are creative, like, I don't believe that a structured, this is how you do it. This is a hundred percent the way you do it or the way you don't do it, like a correct and incorrect way.

5:17I believe that is not well suited for creatives at all, which is why most creatives don't excel in college. They don't excel in school. Many people that you hear about, you know, some of the most respected creatives dropped out or, you know, performed very poorly. So. Yeah. I don't know. I look at this, this piece of, of college for creatives, just as you're processing that there, it's not really allowing any room for magic to happen. And that's where the creativity thrives. You know, I'm just, it's processing in my mind now, like there's so much structure and oftentimes the creativity comes when you have no structure and you have so much space to invite whatever in and see where it comes.

6:02And I guess that's, you know, that pivot for creativity. And oftentimes I find, you know, The most creative thoughts I ever have is when I've actually, you know, they talk about shower thoughts and things like this. It's because you're actually there. You're not distracted. You're not kind of elsewhere in the moment. You're actually here. You're not inhibited by boundaries, essentially. I believe that creativity in general is more or less limited by boundaries in the beginning because you're limited by your taste. You're limited by your level of consumption. You're limited by funds. You're limited by resources.

6:51You're limited by lots of things. And I think that every creative person should seek to remove those limits. I believe one of the bigger limits for most creatives is fear of perception and fear of disappointment in specific people, their families, their friends, the people that they, you know, source approval from. And I believe that I think that removing those as fast as possible should be like top priority for most creative people. Was that a big driver for you leaving college? Was that quite a hard thing? No, it wasn't hard. For me, leaving college was not hard because for me, leaving college was, it was extermination of boundaries.

7:37You know, it was getting rid of a boundary that I felt held me back. And it was getting rid of something that I felt, you know, took a lot of my energy that I could have put towards doing something that I felt lied within my purpose, right? Like within the, you know, the dynamic of passion, proficiency and, you know, good for the world. How was that transition? Like, was it well supported by the people around you? No. No? No. I mean, everybody, nobody sees your perspective, right? Nobody, I grew up, you know, in the Southeast and growing up in the Southeast and the traditional part of the United States, the Bible Belt, you know, You are not encouraged to take the fluid path, to take the creative path.

8:26You're encouraged to take the structured path, the proven path, right? The one that your dad did and one that his granddad took and his granddad took. You know what I mean? And so for me, whenever I made the decision to do that, I actually immediately moved to like across the country because you can't. you can't be effective in an environment where, you know, the other active members are not aligned with your goals and what you feel your purpose to be. I feel like there's a lot of people that are stuck in that spot though. In fact, most people probably have that thought of leaving or doing something, but then they never do.

9:14And they just stay in the exact same spot. It's a weird frame for me to even comprehend because I just sit there and I go, you know you don't like your life, but you are choosing to stay in the life. Yeah. I mean, it's fear of discomfort, fear of uncertainty. And that's understandable. It's always scary walking into a dark room. and that's essentially what leaving is when you're leaving the you know the comfort of your your family you know the roof over your house your parents house right like your friends the people that you know you're essentially you're stepping into a dark room you know and looking for for the door that leads to the next and that is the the life of an entrepreneur an independent-minded person, a thought leader, a creative in general.

10:08What did the first few steps look like when you first embarked on that and started building out your brand? And what did life look like back then? For me, it was discovery. Discovery was the first steps. I believe that the creative process is when creating a product, for example, the creative process typically starts with discovery, right? And discovery is essentially, you know, just becoming aware of what is on the table, right? What is there for the taking? What is there to consume and what is there to learn from? And for me, I was, you know, I was homeschooled. So I was not around people my age.

10:51I wasn't around anybody but my siblings, my parents, and, you know, one or two people from my church, right? So for me, the start of everything was discovery. So it was going out and trying things and going to new places and becoming socially experienced in a way because I wasn't socially experienced from a kid. I mean, I was a very, very troubled kid. I was very angry. And I dealt with a lot of things of that nature. And it prohibited me from being able to interact with people or form bonds, specifically with parentals. And that caused a lot of issues that led to me being withheld from society as a child.

11:37Right. So for me, the first part of all of it was discovery. Why do you feel like you were angry? I was angry because I was, as a child, I was moved around a lot. So, you know, my first mom, Tracy, she was unfit to parent. She had a lot of issues with substance abuse and she was unfit to parent. So I bounced around a little bit between, you know, friends of the family, aunts and uncles, things of that nature. And in your developmental years, those early years, that uncertainty and that instability of, you know, a parental figure or a, you know, a leadership figure provides a lot of resentment towards kind of any authority at all.

12:32So for me, you know, I had something called reactive attachment disorder. And it basically prevents you from forming a bond at all of any kind, really with anyone, specifically an authoritarian figure. So for me, I believe that's where most of the anger came from. When you say first mom, what do you mean? So when I was born, I was born to a woman named Tracy and she passed whenever I was five due to skin cancer. And then I was adopted whenever I was five into a new family. And that was like, you know, the woman I call mother, you know, the woman I call mom. And yeah, she was awesome. Yeah, I think it's interesting looking at those like formative years.

13:22as a child, you know, is there any vivid memories that you have from back then?

13:32I don't have many, to be honest. I don't have many. And I think that my mind has suppressed many of them simply because my childhood isn't a fun thing to talk about. There's not a lot of bright moments. There's not a lot of positive things to reflect on. And I'm a very in the now. type of person. And I think that for me, you know, reminiscing and, you know, kind of things of that nature are just not, they're not pleasant for me. So I don't practice them very often, which is, you know, okay. And I probably should, I should probably go to therapy. I've never been to therapy, but I should probably go to therapy.

14:17I should probably, you know dig into a lot of that stuff and i've been able to in my own way right but i i do my best to to focus on now yeah i think that's productive right um you know i think as long as it's not affecting your life in the now massively then it's probably productive to look at it how uh to to kind of move forward and and look ahead and look at what's happening in life if it's showing up regularly then that's when it's probably like oh maybe we should maybe like open that can of worms it's a little bit confronting just so we can actually move forward freely in a sense what about the the the disease you said what was the it's just a it's just a like a behavioral thing yeah it's called rad rad it's rad it's not rad though it's not rad it's actually it sucks unpack this thing around uh not being able to have relationships with authoritative positions, people that maybe are looking down on you in a sense.

15:15Have you unpacked that and how is that growing up? Because obviously when you're a kid, most people are an authority. Well, the rehabilitation for reactive attachment disorder is allegedly excessive structure to a level that many would call borderline abusive. And as a child, you know, that excessive structure for me took form in a lot of ways that I look back and don't appreciate. But I do believe that that structure to some level contributed to my dissolving of that kind of emotional issue that I had. And I think that in the same way that, you know, an uncontrollable man becomes controlled by the military, right?

16:14Like time in the military, it's like time and structure. That's it. You know what I mean? I mean, I believe that structure in general is required for, you know, an ambitious, anti-authoritarian, anarchist type of person, you know. And I believe that I definitely was that type of person, for sure. But then you also said that there was things you did that you weren't proud of due to the structure? Not things that I did, things that my parents did. And, you know, they were doing what they thought was best. And so I hold no resentment towards them for that. But it's not pretty. And if you look into it, into the rehabilitative efforts for reactive attachment disorder, it's not pleasant.

17:03I mean, I won't go too deep into it, but it's a lot of isolation. It's a lot of isolation. It's a lot of restriction. It's a lot of—it's not normal life. It's not normal life. It's like boot camp in a way. Yeah. Yeah. And I guess if you can't even get along with people as well, that would be isolating in itself, let alone having to be isolated from people and already feel isolated. It's kind of like a negative feedback loop. You don't get along with anyone. Then you're told you're not allowed to be with anyone. So then you reinforce that you're alone. And then you just kind of go down this spiral.

17:44I mean, I've never even heard about this before, but I would imagine that's what it would have been like, right? Yes. Yes. And it feels it feels very much like a me like, you know, like like a dead end. You know, you go from hating your authority to hating them even more and even more and even more to then questioning, OK, is it them or is it me? You know, and then you abandon that and go back to hating the authority, you know. And I think that over time, with the release, relief of that kind of restrictive environment, I was able to really kind of just let go of the resentment and start to really form those relationships, which I'm very grateful for.

18:32When did things really start to change? Things really started to change whenever I went to college. So I went to college when I was 16, where I'm from. I grew up in Georgia and Florida. And if you score high enough on tests, you can kind of just skip the last two years of high school and go straight to college. And it's paid for. It's awesome. It was called dual enrollment. And since then, I believe most states have lowered the funding for it because it is very expensive for the state. And so for me, I went straight to college when I was 16 and I went from being homeschooled with no social interaction to going to a college environment as a 16 year old kid, you know, spending all day on campus.

19:15And I think the time spent with other people and the time spent away from my home and away from my family, specifically my mom, is what really caused the shift. And the catalyst that really changed my life was when my mom passed when I was 17. So that was like a year and a half after I went to college. Why did that change everything for you? Well for me it was just a shocking event You know it was something that I I never thought I'd feel I never thought I'd experience I never thought it was even like a realistic thing I mean horrible things happen to everybody You know horrible things happen to people every day Much worse than what I've endured But for me That was just such a catalytic event That just shook me It shook me And I sat in a daze for a year, I think, just questioning everything and questioning myself and, you know, blaming myself.

20:21And I don't know, I think that whole thing really just shook me to a level that, I don't know, it's so hard to describe. Like a traumatic event like that can just do unexplainable things to you and your mind. And I believe that a lot of the top performers of our time are top performers because they have endured trauma that conditioned them to withstand minor trials and, you know, the first world problems that lots of people complain about. And I don't know. I think that going through such a traumatic event really just like it's almost like it accelerated the growth of my frontal lobe. You know what I mean?

21:13It's super weird to talk about or think about because of how impactful it was in my life. Like, I don't think that if it hadn't happened, I would be here. I don't I don't I think I would be. not here. I don't think it'd be alive. Why did you blame yourself? I blamed myself because I was driving the car.

21:41So it was about six o 'clock in the morning. Me and my mom were driving to a city nearby about 30 minutes away. I was about to buy a drum set on Facebook Marketplace. and making that drive. I was driving at, you know, 17. We just got this car, you know, that we went half in on, on the money and everything. And I was driving and me and my mom were having a great conversation talking about our younger sister, my younger sister, Jocelyn. And talking about how much growth she had had and how much we loved her. And in an instant, I don't really know what happened. And I believe we know it happened after the police reports and everything.

22:24But basically the car just something snapped in the front end. I believe it was the axle. And the car turned on a dime and just started flipping at about 70, 75, 80 miles an hour. And it landed upside down. I was not harmed at all. And my mom died on impact. So, you know, that moment of experiencing that and walking around the car and holding my mom's hand, like, just watching the blood, like, pour from her head and just not even, I wasn't even there. Like, I wouldn't accept it. I was there by myself in the dark, you know, just trying to, like, flip the car over. Obviously, I couldn't do that, you know, or do anything.

23:12Couldn't find my phone. couldn't, it was, it was very, it's hard to like even think about or talk about, but it was very impactful to my life and it shook me and it woke me up and it really, really like rocked me in a, in a good way, in a good way. Why in a good way? Because my mom was the strongest person I know. I mean, my mom battled cancer before I was born, breast cancer. And she obviously like, you know, fought it off. She's like, again, a really, really strong person. And after that, my mom created a book. She wrote a book with her friend, Lucy Barlow. It's called My Chemo Cocktail and I, and it's essentially a book to offer support to chemotherapy patients.

24:01And her whole thing was that she wanted to give people what she wished she had had. And for me, that purpose carried over into my life. And I believe it was my role to pick up that torch that she held and to follow suit and do the same thing. And that's why I do everything I do today. Every business that I've created, it is to help the younger version of myself and to provide the younger version of myself with what I wished that I had had and what I felt would have saved me from pain or discomfort or, you know, trials of many kinds. You said for the year following that incident, you were in shock and frozen in a state that was not fun.

24:54What did the next 12 months look like after that? So the 12 months after my mom passed, it was like, the best way I can describe it is shell shock. It was like post-apocalyptic in a way. Our family was very, very, very torn. um she was the rock of of the household she was the leader she was the head of the household in a way um and not having her there was very confusing for myself for my younger brother for my younger sisters for my dad my dad was obviously you know a mess and you know obviously distraught of from losing his wife 20 years, you know what I mean? And my siblings, I can't even imagine what they were going through, probably something similar to what I went through.

25:50And for us, we just didn't know how to live life without mom. She was the one who was kind of like putting everything together. She made the wheels go around in our family, And so not having her there changed a lot of things. And I believe that our family just crumbled in a way whenever she passed. And, you know, my dad, you know, obviously was affected negatively. And there were some decisions made on his part, you know, in removing me from the family and removing me from that environment that affected me for sure for the next several years. And that's really where my life changed, was when my dad said, you know, you have to go.

26:52Why did that change? Because I had nothing. I had no one. I had no money. I had no car. I had no girlfriend. My girlfriend broke up with me at that time, too. I had no family I had the people from my church Who were kind enough to lend me a room in their attic For a little bit After my dad pushed me out of the house But when you lose everything Life changes When you lose everything You become a different person When you lose your security When you lose the only source of support Love and encouragement that you have Life becomes very interesting very quickly And it became that way for me And it was an interesting walk It was an interesting walk to say the least How far out of that hole do you feel like you are now?

27:47I believe I'm getting there I'm getting there Not all the way back I'm not all the way there But I'm much further along than I should be And I believe that My mom's passing played a large role in my ability to climb out of that hole and I believe that My mom being the person that she was in general paid a played a large role in climbing out of that hole and without her and The purpose that she relayed to me, I don't believe i'd be where I am today. I believe that i've been able to Live in alignment with my purpose better than most which i'm very very grateful for and i believe that i uh i'm getting there that's all that that's that's the best way i can put it i'm getting there yeah it's it's so funny hearing these stories right where like you know speaking with high achievers realizing that for the most part they've all just gone through some gnarly story We've all just gone through some extreme challenge.

28:59Like you hear that, right? And I don't even need to ask you the question of what's your biggest drive. You've just answered it, right? And you just go like, people ask all the time, how do you be so driven? How are you so motivated? Like what are all of the tips and tricks you can teach me to be able to spring out of bed in the morning? And the answer is simple. It's like go through more shit and your life will get easier. yeah like it's like it's like you want drive you haven't been through enough pain you haven't been alone you haven't been isolated you're too comfortable of course you don't have drive and um you know like it's it's one of those stories where you hear you hear the most extreme things and that's the reason that you get out of bed and that's the reason that you build such a big business and that's the reason that you're striving towards all the things that you have and And as you said before, perhaps if none of that was part of your experience, you wouldn't be that driven person that you are today.

30:01I believe when God builds a man, he puts them through difficult things. Because if you were to have a child today, you've got a son, and you want that son to have specific traits. Let's say honesty, patience, for example. Would you give him what he wants right away all the time? No, right? So when God builds a man for a big purpose, I believe that this man has to undergo a season of conditioning. And this conditioning is productive. This conditioning is divinely gifted. And this conditioning should be embraced and somewhat romanticized. And it should be maximized. And whenever things get hard, things get difficult, and you experience levels of uncertainty and discomfort and pain, I believe it's important to really feel it, to really feel it, to think about it, to feel it, to prolong it in a way, and to enjoy it.

31:10because I've learned from my experience, whenever you move out of that stage where God put you through pain in order to teach you a lesson, you look back with so much gratitude and you look back with so much gratitude knowing that you came out of it learning this lesson and learning this lesson and acquiring this skill and acquiring this ability or whatever. And it's nice knowing that God is just preparing you. He's preparing you for something greater. And that understanding is where you find comfort. That understanding is where you gain comfort in a situation where there's no comfort offered.

31:52Do you think the comfort comes from trust? The comfort comes from trust and the knowledge that you really aren't in control. And that you really are just a human being. And that you are not perfect. And that it's going to look messy. It's going to be chaotic. There's going to be a lot of ups and downs. There's going to be a lot of fuck-ups. But that's what builds a man. What builds a man is not a perfect story. When have you ever heard of a high achiever saying, Oh, my life's always been perfect. There's never been anything going wrong. You know what I mean? Like every hero, they're a hero for a reason.