A man who grew up fighting and carrying guns in Brookfield reflects on why toughness doesn't work. His friends ended up in prison, aggressive coworkers lost jobs, and he learned that being solid—stable and emotionally regulated—beats aggression every time. Your future self depends on what you choose today.
The number one reason why I'm not tough and you shouldn't be, because I've seen a lot of tough guys lose out a lot in life or even lose their life in the name of toughness. I think it's much more important to be solid than tough. Now, this is coming from somebody who did live the tough guy lifestyle. You know, where I grew up in Brookfield, that you had to know how to fight because it was inevitable you were going to have a fight. And, uh, you know, come from playing with guns and doing all that wild stuff. But it was a time in my life where I didn't have— I didn't feel like I had much to live for. Uh, but as you get older and if you survive, if somehow you're blessed to get on the other side of it, when you look back, you realize that although that helped build character in terms of, you know, being courageous and resilient and all that kind of stuff and not being fearful of some of the same things that other people might be fearful of, it really doesn't serve a whole lot of purpose in terms of physically doing something to other people or verbally assaulting people. In fact, you know, I talk to people all the time, uh, mainly my folks that are in jail, and they are 20 years into their sentence, 17 years, or whatever number. And they did what they did back then, they definitely will not do today because they're not the same person. And I think a lot of people forget that there's a future self waiting on you, and what you do and who you become in the process now will determine what that future self looks like. And so I I think it's just more important to be solid instead of tough. You know, I've seen tough people at work who spend all their time being aggressive and verbally assaultive to people and just nasty attitudes. And then when the consequence come, they get fired or get written up or get suspended, and then everybody start playing victim, right? I've seen people working in juvenile hall, seen all the toughest youngsters that made the paper, you know, and they get in there and they not that no more, right? Because reality kicks in. I always say there's a difference between keeping real and keeping it reality. Keeping it real is that shit you tell yourself. Keeping reality is that thing that doesn't go away whether you believe in it or not. And I just wish that more people would stop letting their emotions overpower their intelligence because I know you smarter than that. So just be mindful if you have a belief, right? If you have, uh, this thought that you need to be tough or aggressive to move forward in life, I'm here to tell you that is the fastest way to lose out. You don't need to be that to get there. And trust me, every person I know that's made it to the other side is not willing to go back, cuz there's nothing back there. I, I could, I could imagine trying to call some of my old school homies and tell them that I got a problem. Let's go, let's go, you know, ride on somebody, or, you know, come ride with me over here real quick. You know what's probably going to happen Is that because they're not tough anymore, they're solid. More than likely, they're going to say what happened, and they're going to listen, and then they're going to do their best to influence me not to make that move because they're solid, right? They have something to lose. I have something to lose, and they know that if I'm talking about riding on somebody, I'm emotional, right? If that's the case, if somehow I find myself in that space where that's what I want to do, and that's the difference, right? Somebody who's tough, right? Who has nothing to lose, right? This is exciting. This is a moment for them. This gives them opportunity. Opportunity to be— to shine a little bit. So they like, come on, let's do it, and they don't care about the consequences. But nobody, nobody wants to be tough, man. You know, all the neighborhoods we all grew up in, I bet you in 9 out of 10 cats I know, don't nobody live in those neighborhoods no more. We live real nice and comfortable. We got grandkids, you know. We go, you know, we walking dogs, we, you know, we, we riding bikes. Like, we're doing things that Quite honestly, we dreamed to get to this level of peace when we was in the midst of the storm. So I just encourage anybody who is, uh, getting up every day and living in toughness, try not to be tough and focus more on being solid.
I was literally kicked off a Southwest flight before for being disrespectful.
