Harnessing Vulnerability: Build Courage & Resilience (How to Make it Your SUPERPOWER)

27:13I remember me and my cousins coming and they're saying, hey, man, y 'all just make sure y 'all got a lot of T-shirts from the corner store and y 'all just change out the jeans. Right. And so I might wear it one day. My other cousin will wear it the next day. Other cousin will just be shifting, you know, spinning it around. Right. It shaped my perspective. It made me extremely grateful. I remember Christmas Eve. We got our first pair of Nikes and somebody broke in our house and me and my cousin was going back and forth in the room like, man, I can't wait. till we wear them Nikes. We're going to race.

27:45Like any other kids, like kids in the streets of LA, Chicago, Florida, Atlanta. Like we used to race coming up, right? You race with your boys coming up. Used to race light pole to light pole. We got our first pair of Nikes for Christmas. We're going room to room. You know what I'm saying? We just talking. Man, I can't wait. We're going to race tomorrow. And I'll never forget when we walked in that room and they were gone. Oh, man. And you saw a cat had came through that window. Hurt, right? First pair of Nikes. Hurt, right? And I'll never forget My mother called my coach, my little league coach, man, that put me in sports.

28:17A guy by the name of Trey Hurst. And he showed up the next day, and we were sitting on the curb, and, you know, people outside with whatever they had for Christmas, and we were sitting there. And he drove up, and he gets out of the truck, and he says, Inc, I'm sorry, man. You know, I got the call late. And he had, like, a little brown bag that you get from, like, a corner store. and he was like but you know i was able to get some stuff man this is all i could do at the last minute and he had drawers and socks in the bag right and i was grateful that my guy showed up right more than what he had in the bag i was like my dude showed up and my guy still tries to get me drawers and socks till this day on christmas and i don't even need them right just my dude you You know what I'm saying?

29:06But it's moments like that, that you remember that shape and mold you as a person as you go throughout life. And I think we all have them. Right. We all have these moments. Right. Whether it be humility moments, whether it be, you know, moments that keep us grounded. It's just we choose sometimes to forget them. Yes. But I feel like we all have those encounters that as we navigate and we go and we grow throughout life. It's those moments that keep us grounded, that makes us remember where we come from, that makes us remember how we've gotten to the points that people know us at, that we look back and we think and we reflect on to where we can say, all right, I got it.

29:43Right. And so it's those moments. What would you say was the biggest fear or insecurity that you overcame or needed to overcome since after those two years until now? Was it learning how to do public speaking? Was it learning how to accept yourself and the way you looked? Was it connecting with your boys in a certain way or being perceived as someone who got injured? Was it, what was the fear or insecurity you had to overcome? Man, I would say it's layered, so I want to touch on it. It was extremely difficult when I first started going out with my arm. It was extremely difficult, you know, because.

30:21Were you single at the time or did you have a girl at the time or? You know, me and my wife, you know, we've been on and off, you know. She's had more patience with me. Yeah, yeah. By the time you were with her or on and off with her. Yeah, yeah, on and off. But she was always there, man. It was my immaturity. Sure. But, you know, my arm, you know, it's just naturally, you know, smaller. And so when I first started going out, sleeve, and I would go out and either people would shy away, which would hurt, you know, in the early years. or a person would just look, right? Like, man, what is that? You know, and very few people would ask, right?

31:05When I started going out with my sleeve, very few people would say just in terms of if I'm out in the area, like if I'm at Habitat for Humanity, I'm there with the football team. So it's all good. Like people are going to come over, boom. But if I'm out like solo, walking through the mall, very few people would just come up and be like, hey man, what happened? They would just look, right? And just stare. And that was extremely difficult. for me for a long time, right? Just thinking about, okay, man, like, what are they thinking? Right? Or it really hurt when people would just look and they would think I'm looking and they would shy away.

31:38Like that hurt, you know, early on. But I would say the biggest thing that I've had to overcome, like public speaking, I was fearful of that. But the biggest thing, man, was running from poverty. You know, what I considered to be poverty, man. Because I thought football was going to help my family. And so when I started speaking, I started doing extremely well. You know, I have been for a while with speaking to where I would just go. And I was just trying to accept gigs, gigs, gigs. Make as much to tell. I was just running, right, just trying to speak. Because I grew up a certain way. and I was like, man, I don't want my family to have to grow up the way I grew up, my kids, or go back to that environment.

32:24And I loved every element of it, right? I love the encounters with the people. I love the impact that it gives you. I was just running from my past. And I'll never forget, I was in a small group and a gentleman was walking around in a circle and he was like, what's something that, you know, you guys feel like in your childhood, you're still dealing with are you running from? And, you know, everybody would raise their hand and say something. And he got to me and I was like, poverty. And he was like, are you in poverty? I was like, no. He's like, well, stop running. And his simplicity was profound, but it was simple.

33:00Right. And I thought about it when I got to my room and I'll never forget, Louis, I got a gig and it was one of the biggest gigs I had gotten to date and they were about to pay me more money I was 36 now. I was probably 30. Okay, six years ago. You're about to pay your biggest check ever. Yep, biggest check ever. And I was stoked. And the challenge was it fell on my wife's birthday. Right? And so I'm like, man. And so, you know, you start working it out in your mind. Oh, man, my wife's birthday. I started talking. I'm negotiating with her. We'll do a birthday week before or week after. I'm working it out.

33:46I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. So when I bring it to her, I already done worked it out. Hey, babe, this gig, you know, like I can send you and grandma to the spa. I can come back right after that. We can work. I got it all figured out. Oh, I got it all figured out. And she could see how excited I was. So she was like, oh, yeah, yeah, go. Sure, go. And my wife, man, my wife been at it since fifth grade. So she knows me. You go. So I go, it works out, do the gig. I send them to the spa, fly back the same day, pick her up. Everything goes great on a birthday. Two days later, I think it was something about, might have been some socks or something, something small.

34:25My wife blew up, right? She showed a side to me that I hadn't even seen yet, right? And I knew exactly what it was. Like, it clicked immediately. I was like, that was the gig. I was like, she's blowing up, not because she's blowing up about the gig. She felt as if I value the opportunity, the engagement and the money over her and her birthday. That was the damage, right? Over the kids, over the family, over that moment, right? And so what I had to do was realize that, man, you got renewable and you got non-renewable moments in life, right? Renewable. You can always make some more money, right?

35:06Now I'm renewable. My wife would never get another 30th birthday. My son would never have another 10th birthday. My daughter would never have another 11th birthday, right? And so my biggest thing that I had to overcome and destroy and grow through was that spirit and that thought process of running from poverty, something I encountered as a kid. And once I got to a solid space as an adult, you know, every next level of our lives demand a new version of us, right? Taking that toolkit, reconstructing it, growing to another level. So I didn't do damage, but having the right intentions while doing damage, the right intention.

35:45I want my family to have a better way of life, but I'm doing damage with the right intention because I'm not growing beyond that level and that thought process. Yeah. So how do you negotiate? What if you got a hundred thousand dollar gig on her birthday? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Are you just to say, nah, sorry, Nike, nah, I can't come and speak. We good. Go, go. Right. We good. Yeah. Yeah. But man, just trying to communicate, you know, that's a skill that I don't think as men we always get or cultivate, you know, so, but yeah, it worked out. Why do you think so many people hold on to their tragedies or traumas so intently in their present from something that happened two, five, 10, 20 years ago?

36:29Why do you think people hold onto it so long? I think just the nature of the impact when it happens, right? And how it stuns their life, right? Like I had one of my friends who is a high level coach, division one coach that ended up getting fired and, um, great coach, man just had a bad run bad couple of years and hit me up and was like hey ink man i need you to help me with something so why am i resisting opportunities to get another head gig it's like i love ball like why am i resisting the opportunity why am i fearful and i was like i'm not saying this is for certain but i think for one maybe the embarrassment of being fired and how that made you feel, how that impacted your children, how that impacted your family.

37:21Because I think painful experiences, they always come with a lot of different emotions, right? Like me talking about going out and it was hard for me with my arm when people would look at me, right? That was a bit embarrassing at first, right? And so sometimes we hold on to these different emotions that attach to the experiences that we have. So I think you got the experience and then you got the collateral damage of the experience, how it affects our mindset, how it affects the way we see people, how it affects our emotions. And I think sometimes it's challenging to separate the two and deconstruct the two.

37:55And so therefore we hold on to the feelings that the trauma may have given us, right? The feelings that the adversity and opposition may have given us. And so I think the moment that we can grow through it and figure out a way to use it, I think the quicker we get through it because I think it's a powerful thing, Lewis. And I think you probably know this to be true. When we use what happens to us and it creates a light bulb moment for another person, that's a great feeling. It's like when you get something for yourself for Christmas, that's awesome. It feels great. But when you do something for another person that you know is in need, like that feels 10 times better for some reason.

38:34And so I take adversity and opposition and I, I interconnected the same way. Yeah. When we go through things that hurts or we figure out a way to get through it. But when we share something and we identify with another person to let them know that, because oftentimes when people go through stuff, you feel alone, you feel isolated and you feel like, man, like it's something wrong with me. And I think what happens when we go through and we create a level of empathy, we showed them that, nah, man, you're human. Like we all go through things. Like nobody is perfect. Like I told a guy that had a brachial plexus injury, he's like, man, I see how you got through it.

39:09Like it hasn't been that easy for me. I was like, no, bro, it took work. It took years. Like this was painful. I went through every emotion that you're probably going through. And I had a lot of people that helped me with them. And so I feel like sometimes it's just the feelings that are attached and interconnected to the experiences that we have that creates the reason that we hold on to it for so long. Yeah. Right? And I think the quicker we can get through and use what we go through, the quicker we can go out and we can make the world a better place. Absolutely, man. Yeah. Where do you think you'd be right now if this didn't happen?

39:44Do you think you'd have the same level of emotional intelligence and wisdom and service mentality that you do now? Or do you think you'd be in a different place? I think I'd be in a different place, much more reserved. Really? Yeah, much more reserved. because just the nature of my personality, you know, I speak and people see me speak. But to be honest, I'm an introvert by nature. That's why it was so hard for me to do it. But I know for a fact if I had to play ball, God would have blessed me to go to the NFL. Play for a few years. Play for a few years. I'd have just faded to black, man. I'd have helped the people near and dear to me probably like they would have knew me, but I wouldn't have been out in front of the world sharing or traveling.

40:30It just wasn't my personality. Like just to be able to go out and share, that took work for me to be in front of a crowd. And so I know for a fact, if I had to play ball, and I think about that often, if I had to play ball, went out, got a couple of contracts, did well, I probably just sat on the porch every day. You know, I'd be doing work, take my kids to school, be involved in local community stuff. But I never would have discovered some of the gifts that now I know I possess. Like I'm being completely honest with you, bro. I never thought I would speak like ever. They put me in public speaking in college.

41:10I dropped the class on the second day. Yeah. Terrifying. Never, never. Like, and so for me, this is extremely humbling for me, like to speak, to go out and share. It's the thing that I feel like honest, like I could do forever. Right. The interactions never get old to me because I wasn't the guy that was saying, man, I want to go speak. I want to go share. Right. I never thought I could speak. Right. When I got to college, they were putting me in public speaking because they couldn't understand most of the words I was saying from where I was from. You know what I'm saying? And so I never thought.

41:48And so for me to understand and know that my life was being guided by a force and by a source that was a lot greater than me, it's extremely humbling to know that there was a plan in place, even when my plan didn't work. That was extremely humbling for me. And so when a father comes up and says, hey man, like I saw this story, it helped me hang in there with my family. Like I take that to heart. When a kid comes up and is like, man, I watched that before the games. I'm like, man, that's amazing. Right. That can never get to the point in my life to where I'm I'm like, oh, they're just saying that because I never imagined.

42:25I never thought. I never knew I had this gift. Right? And so for me, man, I thank God that this happened. And for some people, it's hard to understand and look at it that way because it helped me discover things about myself that I never knew. What would you say are the three biggest lessons you've learned from the trauma you've experienced? Patience.

42:53empathy, and always being willing to extend a level of grace to others, but also to yourself. Did you beat yourself up for a long time? I wouldn't say beat myself up, but I definitely thought about, like, man, like, why did it happen you know what i'm saying like just going down that rabbit hole of searching like what is this like why did this happen and then when i released that and it was like all right man just survive it stop trying to understand it survive it this did happen i can't go back i can't change it so you gotta accept it gotta accept it get through the pain and the emotions and then find meaning from it absolutely is that the process that was the process bro is that what you would suggest to anyone if they go through a devastating divorce or some type of heartache or injury and they're questioning why did this happen i've been following the rules and i've been a good person and living a good life and why did this thing happen to me what would you say sometimes you got to stop focusing and thinking about what could have happened and what should have happened and you got to live in what is happening right because i always say to him stop trying to understand it and focus on surviving it because the quicker you can survive it, the quicker you can use it.

44:25How would you say that your childhood developed for you to get to a place to be in that environment? That's a really profound question, you know, and it takes me back to my healing journey. and one of the parts of their healing journey started with reading this quote from Socrates, non-examined life isn't worth living. So I was sitting in a prison cell in solitary confinement being told that I would never get out of prison, let alone out of solitary confinement. And the thing about it is I almost started to believe that because my neighbor across from I mean, this guy named Tony is a super fascinating guy, one of the most charismatic, charming guy.

45:09He can emulate voices like you wouldn't even be able to believe. He had been a solitary for like 20 years. 20 years. 20 years. So in solitary confinement, for people that don't know, how much time do you get to spend with others? How much time do you get out of your cell? How much activity time? What is that? What is the day-to-day? 23-hour lockdown. Come on. Five days out of the week. Oh. and 24 hour lockdown the other two days of the week. So for five days out of the week, you can go out to basically what's essentially dog camps. The yard. Yeah. So they put handcuffs on you, put a leash on the handcuffs, walk you out to this cage and you're allowed to stay out there for like, you know, an hour or so.

45:54And oftentimes me personally, I would choose not to go out for a variety of reasons. Sometimes there were like feces wars, like guys just swinging feces. And, you know, I didn't want to be in a line of fire of that. And then other times it was just like, it was in Michigan, so it could be extremely cold and you have the bare minimum on. But it was in that environment that I really began to examine, like, how did I end up here? And what got you into solitary? Because you're not in solitary confinement. Yeah. So I got into a conflict with an officer and that actually ended up being two additional years in prison.

46:27Oh, man. What turned out to be four and a half years straight in solitary on that particular stint. Because what was your original sentence for? So my original sentence was for second degree murder. For how long? How long was it supposed to be? 17 to 40 years. Jeez. And so I ended up serving a total of 19 years. Because you added two years with this. Yeah, I had two years added. And so that extended my time. But during this time in solitary, you know, it was a serious assault on the officer was the charge. We got into a fight. And because I was incarcerated, I got charged with, you know, a crime, a new crime.

47:06And, you know, sitting in that environment, I was reading, you know, that line, the unexamined life isn't worth living. And so what happened is I asked myself this question. how did you go from an honor roll scholarship student with dreams of being a doctor to this being your life and so i began to journal and i began to unpack all the things that had transpired in my childhood that led me to that moment and as i was journaling i was like how is a kid who has experienced this level of trauma even a life let alone you know capable of just being like hey you know what happened to my life and why am i here and so that journaling just peeled back the layers and it was raw and it was ugly and then it became beautiful and it became powerful because what i was able to do was to go back and reassign responsibility to the people who had caused me harm, who had traumatized me, you know, early in my childhood, that trauma started within my household, with my mom, which was very difficult to write.

48:20And, you know, the kind of community that I grew up in, it was unheard of to say that this is abuse and that this is traumatizing me. So I, early on, I began to accept that this was just the way it was. um and so when i began to journal and unpack that and think about you know like what that meant i was able to say you know i wasn't responsible for those hits i weren't responsible for those mean words and as i got deeper into that conversation i began to understand how that household trauma led me to running away when i was about 14 years old And when I ran away, I was so naive. You know, I thought that one of my friend's parents would see this smart, you know, handsome kid and just take me in and wrap me in the love that I believe all children deserve.

49:19You know, it's something I'm so adamant about in my work. I think children deserve like love and care and kindness and, you know, all the things, you know, wrapped in structure. You know, they need this. Sure. and what ended up happening is for like two weeks i just was like roaming the neighborhood i was sleeping friends garages i was sleeping basements you know i was hustling food at the store i was you know hey can i take your bags to your you know car and they would give me 50 cent and i would like you know go eat um you know potato chips and cookies and i was unbathed and you know i began to get ridiculed by you know the older guys like hey you know you're kind of dusty and like go take a shower and get some sneakers and all the things.

50:04And like a lot of kids who grow up in those experiences, I was vulnerable. We don't talk about it a lot culturally because, you know, if you come from the streets, you have to wear that mask. But when you really get down to it, like I was a kid, 14, 14, and most of us are kids, we get looped into this very adult world. and it's a seduction and i over the years i began to actually reframe the language for exactly what it was right so what was it it was it was the seduction of a kid into a culture an adult culture and what that looked like was were you still going to school or were you more just so i was kind of going to school whenever i can shower and bathe and you know so i would go up to the school And what happened is there was an older guy in the neighborhood.

50:53And he was like, hey, you know, I see, you know, what's going on. Like, you know, come rap with me. Let's go get something to eat. And he took me to Burger King. And then he was like, you know. Acting like he's going to take care of you a little bit. Yeah, he's like, yo, you need some sneakers. You need some clothes. If you come, you know, work this spot. This is the beginning of crack cocaine, the crack cocaine era. Was it 1980? It was like 86. 86. Yeah, so this is when crack is just penetrating the Midwest. And this is Detroit, right? It's Detroit, yeah. So we don't even know. You know, this is a new drug in the community.

51:27We don't even know how devastating it's going to be. And as a kid, you can't even begin to imagine what that is, you know. And so, you know, he takes me in. He's like, you know, let's go get sneakers and let's go get food and all the things. And then I'm in this crack house on the east side of Detroit. I'm in here. and I remember the first time where I was like, this is scary, is he brings me this sawed-off shotgun. He's like, if anybody tries to break in, just shoot through the door. You're 14, 15? 14 years old. That's terrifying. I'm going to be shot at a low-caliber gun, let alone a shotgun.

52:03That's terrifying. It's terrifying, but I can't say that I'm terrified because that's not the culture. You got to act tough. Yeah, and so it's like, you know, he breaks down the amount that I'm going to sell and what I owe and then what I'll make at the end of the week. And so the end of the week comes around and it's$350,$400, mostly in singles and$5 of bills. It's this big wide cast. And the first thing I do is go to the grocery store and I just buy all the cereal that I had dreamed of. It's like everything, Captain Crunch, the Yeah, Lucky Charms or whatever. Lucky Charms, Fruity Pebbles. And then I buy, like, chocolate milk and strawberry milk.

52:47You know, the reality is I'm a kid. Yeah. You know, I'm gorging this cereal now, but that was my entry into that culture. Wow. And within the first six months is when it got real. You know, my childhood friend was murdered. Oh. I was robbed at gunpoint. And then I became addicted to crack cocaine at 14 years old. So, you know, I was introduced to that again by another adult who's like, hey, this is cool. This is what we do. It's fine. We make a lot of money, you know. And so I had to navigate addiction in this adult culture as a 14-year-old kid. And then after that, I ended up messing up the money because of the addiction.

53:33And they beat me near to death. Oh, man. You know, and I remember being 14 years old, laying on the bathroom floor in a pool of my blood and asking this question. What kind of world do we live in where this happens to kids? And so that was my intro into that culture. And then over the years, you know, I began to become hardened. I began to put up the mask. And then when I was 17 years old, I got shot. and at that point i was the third of my mother's sons to be shot come on my oldest brother had been shot in the neck um my second oldest brother had been shot at that point when i got shot he got shot in the arm and he got shot again he's currently paralyzed he's been paralyzed since i want to say 1998 um so high levels of gun trauma high levels of you know uh gun violence within the culture.

54:32I can't even tell you how many of my friends have actually been shot or murdered. And so at 17, sitting in the hospital bed, I'm processing this very traumatic event, and there's nobody there to help me. There's nobody there to say, hey. No support, no family support, friends. Yeah, I think my dad and my mom came, but I think they didn't even know what to do at that point. It's like I'm a 30-year-old child just laying in the hospital bed with bullet wounds, And I can't even tell you how many kids in the neighborhood who they saw grow up. You know, this was I mean, and this is the height of that era.

55:09Right. So, you know, 86 to 90. You know, this is like a very volatile time in Detroit. You know, and this is when crack cocaine is at its height. The war on drugs is happening. And, you know, it wasn't until I began to journal that I realized there should have been an intervention. And had I been from a different community with different resources, somebody would have said, hey, you're going to need help. You're going to need a psychologist. You're going to need a therapist. You're going to need somebody to talk to and help you unpack this traumatic event. Absolutely. And that just didn't happen.

55:51And so what happened was I went back to my neighborhood with this narrative in my mind that if I get into a conflict, I'm shooting first. And I began to carry a gun every day. I didn't feel safe. And what you can't say, you know, when you grow up the way that I grew up, you can't say that, you know, that actually hurt when I got shot. No, you're saying, whatever, you know, I'll get back, you know, I'll get the guy next time. You'll be fine in a couple weeks. Yeah. And so that's the mindset at 17 years old that I'm just like, yo, I'm hard. I'm standing on this corner. What I can say to my friends is every time a car pulls up that I have anxiety because there was no language for anxiety.

56:34No. There was no language for paranoia. There was no language for fear because, you know, you can't be a tough kid growing up in the hood and be afraid. You know, you just got to navigate it. You just got to put the mask on. And so I wore that mask. But deeper than that was the narrative that I created, that if I found myself in a conflict, I would shoot first. And 16 months later, at nearly two in the morning, I got into this conflict over a drug deal that I refused to make. And that conflict escalated. And there was this moment, you know, that I always think back to where I turned to walk away.

57:14You did. and i turned to walk away and what i thought was happening was that the person i was arguing with was attempting to get out of the car and i just turned and fired four shots that tragically end this ended his life and you know it's a moment that i played over for years of like Why didn't I just take that second step? And keep walking away. Yeah. And it wasn't until I was journaling that I realized that the grip of the trauma of being shot would not allow me to make a different decision. Yeah. Because you weren't healed. You can't make a conscious decision from a hurt place. Yeah. You have to make that from a healed place.

58:02Absolutely. Or a healing journey. Yeah. You've got to be on that journey. Yeah. Interesting. What happened after that incident? So I was subsequently arrested. I was charged with open murder. And I was eventually sentenced to 17 and 40 years for second-degree murder. And, you know, going through the legal process, I was, like, psychologically, I was already traumatized. Like, I was just, like, so numb. And I remember at my sentence, you know, my lawyer telling me, you know, here's what you say to the family. And it was the most superficial apology ever. And what he wanted you to say. Yeah. And, you know, I was still a kid.

58:57And so I trusted his judgment and I just kind of went with this kind of rote apology. and that was devastating. Really? As I began to navigate my prison sentence. For you it was devastating or for them? I'm sure it was devastating for them, but it was devastating for me in the sense that I knew that I didn't communicate what I actually felt. What did you actually feel? That I had made a horrible decision that had caused them incredible pain. I was deeply sorry. and just like it was something that i wish i could have took back and as opposed to like the scripted kind of yeah clinical apology yeah you know and so for years i you know in prison i just kind of beat up on myself and i just internalized even more of that pain you know and you know my first five years in prison was just like dark and anger filled and just i got into tons of trouble and Lots of fights.

1:00:00Lots of fights and, you know, disobeying the rules. And it's very recalcitrant. Like, I'm like, I'm not listening to no rules. And it was in that environment where, in that dark space, where one of what I call my three miracles transpired. And that first miracle was meeting some of the most incredible mentors in the world. and these were in prison in prison yeah yeah and these weren't like you know people who were coming to visit us to help salvage our souls were people who were just like you know you know we want to come and help you fix your life these were guys serving life sentences um guys who if you you know really think about what a life sentence is they had nothing to gain you know they were by helping you by helping me.

1:00:54But these guys were brilliant. You know, these guys challenged me to read to think, you know, they challenged my thinking after I read, we debated, you know, they tried to give me guidance. And even though I didn't listen to them in a moment, you know, that that wisdom later on became one of the most valuable gifts I've ever received. Yeah, so that's what it was like the first part. The first five years, dark, you're getting in trouble. Some mentors are trying to help you. You're doing a little bit of the work, but you're still from a hurt place. You're still reactive. You still haven't healed the trauma or done the journaling and the healing work yet.

1:01:37And so what, then five years in, you got into the fight with the guard, which sent you into seven years solitary? No, that came about three years later. the second miracle actually showed up in about that fifth year. And it came in the form of a letter from this woman named Nancy. And when I first got the letter, I'm just like, okay, who is this random person writing me? You didn't know what she was. Yeah, I thought it was just a pen pal because that's what happens in prisons. People hear about your case and you just start getting these letters from random strangers who are like, hey, I just want to be friends, et cetera.

1:02:15But it turns out Nancy was the woman who had raised David, whose life I was responsible for taking. Oh, man. And so Nancy writes me this letter. She wasn't the mother? She wasn't the mother. She was the godmother. Oh, man. She writes me this letter. So this is five, seven years in. This is about five or so years in. And I remember opening the letter and her beginning to tell me who David was. You know, the father, the husband, the man, the friend. And I can tell you, I wanted to boil that letter up. Oh, I was like, you know. Mostly it was just like a tidal wave of like guilt and responsibility and all the things that I hadn't unpacked yet.

1:03:04And something was like, you have to read the letter all the way through. You have to finish this thing. And I continue to read the letter. And what Nessie said to me was like, despite the harm and devastation you've caused my family, I love you. Holy cow. And I forgive you because that's what God would want me to do. Oh, my goodness. How did that make you feel reading that? I was like, I went through kind of like a process of different feelings. First, I just felt horrible because I'm like, this woman in a moment of her own hurt and anguish is giving me something that I didn't even know if I was capable of receiving, which was love and forgiveness.

1:03:58and I wasn't emotionally mature enough at that time to even understand like the power of like, you know, love that's like spiritual love, you know, this, this deep, deep spiritual love, this principle perspective of like somebody's beliefs really aligning with what they actually do um i hadn't forgiven myself so forgiveness was like whoa like what is this you know what what am i supposed to do with this you know um but i wrote her back you know and i wrote her back and her and i embarked on this correspondence journal and you know nancy was essential to my personal healing in this way. What she said to me was that I want to know what happened to that 19-year-old kid that pulled the trigger that night.

1:05:03What caused you to get to that space? What caused me to get to that space. Wow. And so her and I began this journey of just unpacking a lot of the things. um but even with that it wasn't the kind of moment of just like where everything comes together yeah um you know in storytelling people often want just that one moment of like this is your come to jesus moment healing is a journey it is a journey it may not be like oh i'm healed in this moment there might be little moments that bring you closer to awareness absolutely and then And eventually over time, it starts to mend and heal. And I remember a moment that I had not to go off track.

1:05:48I remember a moment I had where nine years ago, I mentioned I was, you know, when I was 30, I opened up about sexual abuse for the first time and I held on to it for 25 years. So I didn't even start to heal until 25 years later. And if I look back and I'm like, hmm, there's a reason why I reacted in this way, in this situation and this situation, not saying it's okay or that I'm off the hook, but without having the tools to heal, even the littlest of traumas, we could turn situations into horrible situations. Absolutely. We can choose bad things. Absolutely. And I remember I started my healing journey at 30, but I still had other things in my life that I hadn't started to heal.

1:06:31Other traumas, right? From parents to previous relationships to whatever, or shame and guilt that I was holding on to. And it wasn't until about a year and a half ago in therapy, diving in very deep, where I felt the pain in my chest that I had for so long kind of disintegrate. It was actually a moment. But I was like, this is almost 10 years of a healing journey. Then there was a moment that I felt like it connected my mind to my heart and my body, where my nervous system finally fully relaxed from that trauma now i'm sure i'm still gonna have things that come up and you you go back and you have to learn and heal and you go back a couple steps and you learn and it's a journey but there wasn't like this aha moment the moment i talked about it the first time it took me nine years yeah and then i'm still gonna need to learn how to heal you know yeah but so that so that happened for you with the letter absolutely correspondence was like Like it was a moment of awareness, but it wasn't like, oh, I'm this loving, healed, no shame human being anymore.

1:07:34Absolutely. And you speak to something that really, you know, speaks to me, right? Is that the healing journey, when you explain it, what we haven't created space for is the explanation without interpreting it as an excuse. Right. Like, I don't make any excuses for the horrible decision of that night. But I think it's important for people to really understand how we get to those moments. Like, I don't think that violence is born in a vacuum. I don't think that these acts that we see play out all the time in the world are things that just are in a moment or are born in us as human beings. There's all these things that happen, right?

1:08:20And a healthy, conscious human who's got on a healing journey or is just processing their pain, processing trauma when it happens and learns how to do that, which they don't teach us these things growing up in school. Parents don't teach us. I grew up in Ohio. It was never, share with me how you feel. It was just toughen up. And in the sports field specifically, you fall down, you get hurt. Just put the dirt on it and go back. you're made fun of if you showed emotion, right? In the sports field, right? And so you just wanted to, I just wanted to fit in. You just wanted to fit in and you couldn't, you couldn't show a tender emotional side.

1:09:04And I think it's, you know, it's one of the reasons why I wanted to create this show 10 years ago during my healing journey was like, what are these tools that can really help transform human beings inside so we can have a healthier outside? We see all these, you know, all the pain in the world, right? School shooting that just happened the other day, 19 kids, right? And this is what, I don't know, 20 or 30 shootings this year so far? Mass, yeah. It's, whenever there's these mass shootings or this wars, it seems like a lot of times it's caused by men who are hurt. Absolutely. Who are in pain. Absolutely.

1:09:45Who haven't learned how to heal trauma. and there's no justification. There's no, you know, lack of responsibility by any of these acts. But I think you can see where that pain is coming from and how like, man, this person had to go through a lot of years of trauma that was unresolved to get to this breaking point. Absolutely. And I think, and I'm so glad that you're doing the work you're doing because for me, I know that if I didn't have some environment that was healthy, and some friends that were good and some, you know, parental figures that were good, I could have gone down the same path.

1:10:25You know, my brother went to jail, told you about this. And it's like I could have seen myself going down that with one decision. Absolutely. One action that just like my pain gripped a hold of me and I made a dumb decision and now I'm in jail for 5, 10, 20 years. So it could be so quick how one action can hurt a lot of people and yourself forever. And I think the most important thing is teaching men how to heal their emotional wounds, their traumatic wounds today. Because a lot of the pain in domestic violence and community violence in schools and just the world, the wars that people are having is from men who are hurt and haven't healed.

1:11:11And so I'm so glad that you're doing this work and you're talking about this because when you're a young boy growing up as a young teen, I'll speak for myself. One of the main drivers is to try to get a girl to like you. It's like in our DNA or something, right? It's like, how can I get a girl to like me, to hold my hand, to kiss me, to whatever it is when you're like 10, 12, 14. You just want to be accepted by a girl that you like. Absolutely. So we're driven to do things to get the attention from a girl. essentially. Whether that's right or wrong, it's just kind of like what drives us. And this may sound not politically correct, but the challenge is I don't think women understand how to allow men to be emotionally vulnerable, especially when they're growing up.

1:12:00It's not accepted. When you're made fun of, when you're picked on by other boys, when you're being sensitive, or maybe a girl who's saying, hey, what are you crying for? That's not sexy to me. that's not a turn on, then boys start to toughen up and say, okay, I can't show my emotions because my buddies are going to make fun of me. I'm not going to get the girl. And she's not going to think I'm a real man. And so we kind of put these masks on. Absolutely. Right? Tell me if I'm wrong here. No, no, I think you're right. And I think what it is is that the culture, even for young girls who eventually grow into be women who want men to be mostly vulnerable, they're as much of victims of it as we are because they're told that you know the toughness the mass the indifference you know the the bad boy you know imagery is what's a you know it's a turn on it's a turn on right and then as they go through their maturation process they realize that you know there's something else that's needed and that vulnerability and then i think from a cultural standpoint as men, what we fail to do is to say, hey, you know, I actually love love.

1:13:12Yes. You know, I actually appreciate intimacy, you know, that, you know, as beautiful and as amazing as you are, what really is beautiful is that I can trust the conversation we're having is authentic and I can be my true self and I can say, you know, today this actually hurts. You know, one of the things I wrote about in a new book, I said, you know, as a boy, when I couldn't cry tears, I cried bullets. Oh, like that's our community right now. Right. These mass shootings are unexpressed sadness. They're unexpressed frustration. They're unexpressed insecurities. And while it doesn't excuse the behavior, if we grow to understand it, then we can actually better prevent it, first of all, because everybody can do a Monday morning triage and we can all play Monday morning quarterback.

1:14:04But prevention is what we have currently available to us. And that prevention starts with understanding. If you don't understand, if you don't create space for men to actually say, here's how I really feel. Let's take down the idea that you think about how I feel, but here's how I really feel. And we have to do it with each other as men. Absolutely. And what I found is that like in my men's circle, I get so excited to talk about my friends. Like I say to them, you know, I love you, brother. Like I care about you. And how does your soul feel today? You know, did you do anything that was joyful?

1:14:41Are you fulfilled in your life and in your purpose? And we don't have to talk about numbers and metrics and all these other things that have been defined as the way that we measure our manhood. But I can do it because I'm willing to share those things. And I didn't get there overnight. Like this was a journey unlike anything imaginable. And I would say that the tipping point from the emotional growth started with the third miracle. Remember, I said there was these three miracles. So Nancy was the second one. Yeah. And so that third miracle was getting a letter from my son while I was in solitary.

1:15:22So this is after the altercation with the officer. I'm about seven or eight years into my sentence. From your son? Yeah. When did you have your first son? So my first son was born six months after I was arrested. So his mom was three months pregnant. Wow. Oh, wow. And so, you know, probably about two years into that time in solitary, which began about my eighth year in prison. so I probably was coming up on 10 years when I get this letter wow and my my dad always would sit my son down and make sure he wrote me letters and normally they were just you know these little kid letters hey dad you know transformers is my jam right now you know or you know here's a drawing or whatever and I love you dad and you know he would send you those yeah as a kid young two five seven year old yeah and i actually still have those letters some of those letters um and so he would send me these you know throughout my my journey and then i get this one letter when he's about 10 years old i'm in solitary at the time i think i'm on about year two and i opened the letter expecting it to just be you know hey dad here's what's happening in my world when i opened him my son writes to me dad my mom told me why are you in prison murder and he said dad don't kill again jesus watches what you do that letter destroyed the facade of toughness like the mask that i had worn up to that point in my life i mean it just disintegrated and i was like i owe him a dad and if i don't know if i'm getting out of prison or not but what i do know is that i have to live my life in a way that my son understands that no matter how far down you fall in life, if you are willing to do the work, you can get up and you can overcome.

1:17:25And so I said to myself in that moment, I don't know how, I don't even know if I'm ever get out of this place, but I need to prove to myself that I am committed to transforming my life. And I'm in the Spartan cell at the time. Like there is nothing there that says, hey, here's how you can prove it. So I started with journaling because I wanted to get to the truth of like, you know, how did I end up here? Like there was a part of me that was like, I know I'm not a bad person. I know that I'm a good soul, but I've done horrible things that have hurt people. And so that was a conflict that was just like, this is a war right now, right?

1:18:11And so I go into battle mode. I'm like journaling and I'm writing. And I mean, it's raw and it's scary. And it's just like, sheesh, this is the things that I've done. These are the things that have been done to me. And while I was doing it, I realized that I hadn't completed anything other than the GED. And I was like, okay, if you're committed to transforming your life, you have to finish something. And you have to do it for you. and you can't do it for the warden. You can't do it for the guards. You can't do it for your parents. I told them many times, oh, I'm turning my life around. So last time I've been in trouble, it was all the fluff.

1:18:50It was the mess. It was the lies that we tell ourselves in the moment when we're hurting and we're just like, okay, we don't want the, we want that immediate hurt to stop. But it wasn't about turning life around. And so I said, here's what you do. you have to write a book in 30 days and if you write this book in 30 days then that will be your proof that you're ready for a change that's cool and so i didn't have a laptop though i didn't have a typewriter handwriting it was old school i didn't even have a real good pen like so imagine if you pull the inside of that pen out you had that little thing that little thing oh my gosh that's hard yeah and so i was like okay they want to give you a pen no not in solitary they're scared you're gonna like shank the guard oh my gosh and so immediately i was like it's no way possible i'm gonna write a book in 30 days with this thing and the first thing that popped in my mind was here's excuse number one here's your victimhood here's your blaming everything other than being accountable and i was like okay no this is not gonna happen we're not we're not going back down this path, right?

1:20:01And so I took that pen and I rolled it up in some paper. And I had - That's you. That's you getting in there. I hate the heart. Yeah, I'm like, yo. I mean, I had tons of experience rolling things up. So it was just like, let me be intentional, right? Like this is innovation. This is, you know, I learned that later on in my life. That, oh, that's what that is, like innovation. But rolling it up in that paper made it firm enough for me to write. and I wrote for 30 days straight until I finished that book. And when I finished that book, I felt this incredible weight lifted from my shoulder and I felt empathy for myself and I felt compassion.

1:20:43And I was like, you are a smart kid. You are capable of doing good. You are worthy of doing good. greatness is the ability to do something good over and over. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad-free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well.

1:21:26Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.