Hack Your Mindset To Overcome Life's Challenges & Find The Positive w/ Inky Johnson EP 1279

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Terms and conditions apply. I want to bring your message to my audience. So for those that don't know, can you share a brief story about your background from athlete to, you know, breakdown to then break through and what, and what, what actually you grew up believing and dreaming in what happened and then.

Where you're at now, man. Kid that grew up in the city Atlanta, mom at 16 had me, took me back to 125 Warren, two bedroom home, 14 people. And me and my cousins, man, we grew up sleeping on the floor, pallets, you know, best time of my life. You know, we loved it, right? But like any other kid, man, I had a dream, you know, and I felt as if at the time, football was the quickest vehicle to get me in a space and place to help my family. My mother's working a double shift at Wendy's. My grandmother, sweetest soul ever, rest in peace. She's transitioned, but I wanted to help my family. And I felt as if I had the tools and the skills to do that. And I had a lot of people in my life that helped me, man. And so I was the first in my family a lot. I was the first one to graduate and go to college. I was the first one that looked as if I had something really promising that was about to happen. And so when I went to college, University of Tennessee, full football scholarship, you know, everybody back where I was from, you know, thought like, hey man, Lil Ink, he's about to be the guy. He's the ticket. He's about to make it. Like that's our guy. That's all they used to talk about. My family members, that's all they talked about in church. All they talked about, my former high school, Crim High School, was one of the lowest performing public schools in the state of Georgia. when I attended, right? Atlanta Public School System. And so everybody thought like, hey man, this cat is about to really make it from where we come from. And I thought the same thing. And I got really close to making that NFL dream happen. And I went to make a routine tackle September 9th, 2006 against the University of Air Force and I almost lost my life. And it ended my career. and it paralyzed my right arm and hand. And it sent my life down a totally different path to which the world have come to know me as the inspirational speaker and a servant that I am today. But at one point, I thought it was gonna be this guy in the NFL playing ball until I retire.

You and me both, man. Until an injury ended mine as well.

Yeah, man.

So you had a routine tackle. You're playing DB, right?

Yep, DB.

Defensive back.

Defensive back.

Routine tackle. Do you remember exactly what happened?

I do, man.

What was it like? Was it on the left side, right side of the field? Was it a run, was it a pass play? What was this?

Yeah, man, it was on the left side of the field. And it's crazy. I remember it vividly, man. We was in quarters coverage. You know, I was just back pedaling as a corner.

Zone.

Yeah, we had a quarter of the field, zone, pretty much. And when I went to hit this guy, you know, it was almost like they ran a real wheel route, you know, a guy came out of the backfield, turning up five yards out, then coming up the field. And, you know, I'm looking at the quarterback. He's tapping it, releases it to him, and I'm thinking I'm about to hit him, maybe make him fumble. We can end this thing. Get ready for Florida the next week. Two minutes left. And as soon as I hit him, it seemed as if Lewis, everything in my body left. Like one of the scariest moments of my life. And I had been in a lot harder collisions, but it seemed as if as soon as I hit him, everything in my body, every breath just left. I had never felt that before. It's like I lost total control over my body. I hit the ground and I blacked out. Never experienced that before. And when I came to, it was very quick. When I came to, my teammates were running over, like, ain't it up, let's go. And I was like, I can't. And it was like, what you mean you can't? You always get up, man. You're captain, let's go. Nurse your injury after the game. I was like, I can't move. And it was a shock. I'll never forget, it was going from the crown of my head to the bottom of my feet. I couldn't feel anything. All the way through the body. All the way through, it just kept.

Going, kept going, kept going, and then it left, but it stayed in my right arm and hand. So left in your body where you.

Could feel and you could move your legs, you can move your arm, but not the right side. Right. And it stayed there, but I thought it was a stinger. Now we get stingers, yeah, yeah, you get dead arm, you get a stinger and it stays for a while and it leaves. And so that's what I thought it was. And so I still wasn't panicky, right, after it happened, I was like, ah, maybe a stinger, you know, maybe I broke my arm, you know, 'cause they brought the spine board out, put me on it, wheeled me off the field.

'Cause at that point you could stand up a little bit or you can.

Move, but, Yeah, yeah, I could move my body. I just couldn't move my arm. You know, and so they were like, we're gonna take you to the hospital. You know, so then I thought, man.

I'm not moving my arm.

You weren't too worried about it? No, no, I wasn't worried. 'Cause your body was, you can move your neck. You were? Absolutely, so I wasn't worried. They get me over, they run their test, and they bring me back into a room, and everything is still loose. You know, everything is loose. My mom comes in, kisses me on my forehead, cracks a joke, Everything is all good. You'll be fine. It's football. And she goes to exit the room, and when she exits the room, I'll never forget she made a left. When she made the left, I flipped my head back to the left. When I flipped my head back to the left, I saw the head doctor, and he was running in, and he was kind of, you know, screaming at an elevated tone. And he was like, Guys, guys, get in here. We got to rush this kid back to emergency surgery. And he's about to die. And I was thinking, like it was-.

They're talking about you or someone else?

He was talking about me, but I was thinking like, everything was so calm and cool. I'm thinking he's joking, like not joking, but like I'm thinking he's messing with me, right? Because everything had been so calm. And so I was like, like, da-da, like away from me or da? It was like, yeah. I was like, what happened? And he was like, when we ran the test, we noticed you've ruptured your subclavian artery in your chest and you're bleeding internally. and he said, we got to rush you back and take the main vein out of your left leg and plug it into your chest in order to save your life. Holy cow. Yeah. He said, or I guarantee you you won't be alive in the morning.

You'll bleed out.

And that's when I always a real situation. It's a real situation.

So you were fairly calm. Maybe you were frustrated that you got injured. You don't get to finish the game. You're like, oh, this sucks. Like, yeah, hopefully I can get back next week or something, and they'll be able to tape me up and put up a bandage, and I'll get out there with one arm and I'll be fine. You know how to boys think, of course, man. But then he was like, oh, no, we need to do the surgery now.

Or you may not last. Yeah.

Holy cow.

That's a big shock.

That was a shocker, man. So what? How much time from that moment until surgery?

Oh, they took me back right then. Yeah.

Put the gas mask in.

Oh, they went. They went to work right then. Like five, ten minutes. Oh, yeah. It was real. They start doing whatever they had to do then. Like, was your mom there?

Yeah.

Yeah, she was there, but she was waiting out. Like, they told her, but they had to take me back right then because they said it was already rupture and.

I was already bleeding internally.

Did she get to say anything before the surgery or.

No.

I'm sure she said something, but at that point, I was like, oh, what's going on? Yeah, I couldn't believe it. Like, that's when everything got kind of concerning.

Isn't it crazy one moment can change the direction of your life?

Oh, no question.

One instant.

No question, man.

One slight turn, one hit, one breath could change everything.

Yeah, man. And I, you know, that's affected and impacted even the way that I live my life until this day. Just not only the injury, but it's so many parts of the injury that shaped my perspective until this day. I always say to people, because they say to me all the time, like, man, did you do anything different? Did you wear any different pads? Did you warm up different?

Right?

And I'm like, no, man, I did the same thing. I listened to the same pregame music. Like my song, Phil Collins. I can feel it. That's my joint. I'm like, man, I listened to the same song. Wore the same pads. But for some reason, on September 9, 2006 on that day the outcome of something that I did for most of my life was totally different, right. And so, I always ask people and challenge people like when you say something to the extent of not you, but just a person I'll get to it tomorrow. I'm like, who promised you that, right. I'll get to it a month from now. I'm like, who promised you that, right. Because life changes so quick, right. And as people we're often arrogant, I was one of them. We live our lives and we feel as if we're promised something, right. But when you think about it's like when we try to control things, but when you really think about the macro of life and the grand scheme of life, we really don't have any control, right. We can control what we possess, emotions, attitude, thought process, perspective, how we speak, how we respond. But just life in general, we have no control of that, right. You think about how many people woke up this morning thinking like man, everything is going to be great and life changed, right? One day you wake up on top of the world, next day you wake up world is on top of you, right? And so, it's affected my mentality and my perspective just toward life, how I greet people, how I see people, how I interact, right? Just that one moment and one element of the injury, right? It's so many things that's happened inside of the injury that shaped and molded me as a person. People see the injury People don't always think about the intricacies of how it shaped and molded and cultivated who I am as a man until this day. Yeah.

So, how long did it take for you when you had the surgery and woke up to get to a place of peace and finding a purpose or a new identity? Because I know what it's like to lose the identity of being an athlete.

Absolutely.

In a moment. I broke my right wrist. and had surgery and had six months in the cast and tried to like come back from it but realized, oh, I couldn't straighten my arm for about a year and a half after the surgery in the cast. So it wasn't as devastating as you obviously of an injury, but the injury and the surgery took me out of the thing I loved and the identity. And I was in a dark place for, I don't know, probably a year and a half trying to figure out who am I? You know, where's my value if I can't be this thing?

Absolutely.

And where I got all my, acknowledgment and praise from this one thing that I can no longer do anymore. It's like, well, am I good enough for life? You know, what's the value I can bring and contribute to the world? So how long did it take for you from that surgery to what did they say when you woke up? What was that next step?

I would say the total process took me a little bit over two years just to get to a real place of just peace, acceptance, and just trying to figure life out.

You still didn't know your purpose or what you wanted to do, but you're.

Just like trying to recover and maybe.

I can function back and maybe I can do this.

You know, it's that bravado, man. You think that. I'm gonna come back. Yeah, you're gonna come back. That's the athlete's mentality. You think you can come back from anything. And so even, you know, when I woke up and they were telling me that your career is probably over, your arm and hand will probably never be the same again, because the medical term for my injury is a brachial plexus avulsion. and I ruptured my subclavian artery. And so the brachial plexus is basically the nerve roots that come from our spine that control shoulder, arm, hand, fingers. And so what happened at the point of contact, the guy's helmet hit me between my shoulder and my neck, sent my neck one way, shoulder opposite way, and it ruptured the nerves from my spine that control arm, hand, fingers, shoulder. And so I ruptured also my subclavian artery from just the speed and the impact. And so when they were telling me this, I'm like, no way. Like, I worked too hard, man. I've been working for this since I was a kid. And now I get to the point to where I could possibly get drafted, and now I lose it all. I'm like, no, man. And so I went back to the sand pit that week, right? The next week, I was in the sand pit with my teammates with a dungeoi sling. in a Velcro strap with staples in my body from incisions from surgery.

Right?

I was back in the indoor complex running.

Holy.

Right? Running?

Yeah, man, with this false sense of hope.

Thinking you were to come back. Yeah, man, I'm gonna come back. Like, I'm a train, I'm gonna come back. Thinking that, like, nah, man, I can't.

Lose it that quick.

Like, I can't lose it that quick. One little hit. Yeah, like, man, I've been putting in years where I can't lose it that quick. That was my thought process. And so I didn't have peace at first because it was almost surreal. I remember going to sleep early, like every day, like 6 p.m., 7, right? Thinking that, man, when I wake up in the morning, I'll be able to feel my arm again. Really?

Yeah.

Thinking that, man, like when I wake up, I'll be able to feel my arm. And I would wake up, man, and I would touch my arm, touch my hand, But like, man, I still can't feel it.

I couldn't feel anything. No sensation.

Nothing.

Nothing on the skin, nothing.

I can't feel anything, even in my back at the time. Like it was more places in the arm at first. It was like, Damn, that's on the.

Side of the neck, man.

Part of my pec. And so I would go to sleep early thinking it was a bad dream. I just couldn't come to grips with that I could just lose it like that.

Right?

And so, man, I would wake up and touch that arm, like, and every day it would be like a period to where I would be like, man, I can't feel it. But I'm gonna go to work out.

Right, I'm gonna go to the gym. You'll do the other arm.

Yeah, I'm gonna go to the gym and say, I'm on a Smith machine with one arm, right? Lift and squat and thinking that I'll be able to make a comeback, man. And I'll never forget, I broke down on the turf in the indoor. When reality set in, like one day it set in and I cried, man, I was in an indoor facility, I was on a turf and I was like, man, I probably never get to play again. Like really? And that day was, it was tough on one end of the spectrum because it was like, man, the reality of I probably won't be able to play again, but on the opposite end of the spectrum, It's weird, it was a level of freedom, right? That, okay man, release it. Get it out.

Stop holding on to it.

Yeah, stop holding on to it. Just get it out, man. And so it was an interesting situation when that happened, right? Like on one end up, I was crying, I was hurt. But on the opposite end of it, it was a level of freedom. Like, okay man, now it's time to turn the page and let's move forward.

Really?

Yeah.

So how much longer was that? Was like a couple weeks, a month after?

Nah, that was when I came to that reality. I was closing in on the two years.

Two years later when you weren't really living.

Because two years was the timeframe that they gave me, too, that if something is to happen, if something is to.

Come back, you got like a two year.

Yeah, you got like two years, you know, if something is gonna happen. And so I'm in this two year window thing. Pulling out of hope, man. Oh man, I'm like, Man, within two I'm going to get stronger, I'm going to get sharper, my IQ is going to increase. It was all this thought process of just, I'm going to just come back this machine, right? But also realizing I'm going through the two years and I'm going to doctor's visits. And now, when I think back on it, I can see it. I see when I go into doctor's visits at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota and they would have a new device and they would try it and think, Man, this is the one, Ink. I remember seeing a doctor cry one day, right?

Cry.

Cry, man, because it didn't work.

No way.

And I had become, like, close with him, right? Because I'm going to see him, like, every other week. Like, we're cool now, right?

He's thinking, well, we're going to figure.

Out a way to make it work. They want it to work, too. Not even for the sake of ball. I think they wanted me to have. Yeah, just some quality of life, right? In terms of with my arm and my hand. And I'll never forget doctor walking out and he was crying and he said man, we want it to work. And I was like man, I do too. But now thinking about that moment and what he must have been feeling at the time, I'm totally just locked in, right. And so, I'm just thinking like man, like he's feeling what I'm feeling but I'm still not thinking I won't be able to play. But now removed from it years later I know exactly what he was feeling. He saw me every single day coming there with this false sense of hope, like, man, this kid wanted to work. I wanted to work for him, but nah, it ain't gonna work.

Oh, man.

And he felt it, right? But I still didn't catch it because I was so focused.

It's gonna happen.

Yeah, but he knew. He knew far beyond. Far before I got to that point, he knew, like, Ah, man, I don't know when it's gonna set in, but, man, I don't know when he's gonna get it, you know? And I came to that point, man.

Two years later.

Yeah, I came to it.

How do you let go of an identity that you once were, that you can no longer be?

Yeah, man. It's, that's a great question, man. And especially for us as, athletes or former athletes because we all tie. And I think everybody to a certain extent with what we do, because if you ask a person, hey man, who are you? They're going to tell you what they do, right? Because their identity most of the time is wrapped up in what they do. And so for athletes, it's heavy, right? That identity crisis of, man, I play ball, I do this, right? And so when you got to transition into another period or sector in life, It's sometimes hard to understand because you don't always get that same feeling. And so when guys have to do it or when I had to do it, it was tough just trying to figure out what am I going to do, right? Because I've done this for so long and this was the thing that I thought was going to help my family. And so I'm big on service, right? Because a lot of people helped me and my family coming up. And I'll never forget, man, I got to share this. I would go to Habitat for Humanity. because people would help me and my family coming up. And so I just love the looks that it would put on people's faces when I was at Tennessee. They would always have a project force to do. Whenever I would go, people would always say, Hey man, what happened to your arm? Because they would see the atrophy. This arm is naturally smaller than my left. And so I would just be like, oh man, this is a football injury. And somebody would always be somebody there would be like, no, what happened? I know your arm didn't get like that from just an injury. What happened? I'd be like, just a tackle, man. I was making a tackle, hurt my arm. They would keep pressing the issue, and I would answer questions. And when we would leave, somebody would always say, hey, man, you might need to speak. You might need to share that. I'll be like, no, I'm cool, right? Because my mother raised me, like, from the standpoint and the perspective of, hey, man, life don't owe you a thing.

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Sometimes, wherever you get your podcasts. Right? Like, okay, something happens to you, you pick up the pieces, move forward. And so I never thought of anything that happened, anything I went through with my family, like, as anything special. Everybody got a story. That's how I view life. Everybody done been through something, right? Everybody's gonna encounter something. And so I never looked at speaking, sharing. I never was the guy, like, oh, man, this happened to me. Let me go share with the world. It was like, nah, ain't figure it out. Like, pick up the pieces, move forward and figure it out. And so when people would say this, I would be like, Nah, I'm not trying to speak. I don't want to speak. And one day I was in a small group because I was connected to community. That was one of the things I did intentionally when I got injured. I said, Man, I need community. I need to be connected to whether it's spiritually, whether it's life groups, I need to be connected. And it was a guy, shout out to my guy Gus. older guy, like in his 70s. I got a couple restaurants, East Tennessee, had them in Atlanta, sold them, did really well in life. We're in a small group one night discussing some things, and he says, man, you're selfish. I was like, me? I'm like, no, man. I'm probably one of the most unselfish people you know. He was like, no, man. Like, you're selfish. You think your injury and what happened to you is just about you. I was like, It happened to me. He was like, no, but you're thinking it's just about you. I was like, It happened to me. He was like, No, Ink, it's like the things we go through in life, man, they're not just for us, right? Once we get to a place of peace and we figure out how to deal with it, it's our responsibility to go out and share that. It's like not before the world all the time, but just to share it because other people go through things, right? Other people are fighting. just go out and share it. And it was the first time I had got hit with something to where I pondered it, right? To where I was like, make a night. Make a nice point.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

A good point. And I was getting invitations to speak at the time. School assembly, you know, backyard stuff, birthday party. And I got the filling, Louis. I got the same feeling. that I was getting in the tunnel and I was in kneeling. I got it. I got it. Right? And I'll never forget when I got it, I felt it and I captured it. I was like, this might be it. And I spoke, did well, got home, and I'll never forget thinking like, man, like, I might need to look more into this. I might need to be more intentional about this.

Right?

Then I meet a guy in West Town Mall in Knoxville, me and Eric Berry. Eric went first round, fifth pick to the Chiefs. We did a signing. Me and Eric walking, Eric splits off to go to his car. I'm walking, a gentleman comes running through the mall. Stops a couple of feet away from me. Balling, grown man, crying. And he says, Thank you. I was like, no disrespect, sir, what are you thanking me for? He's like, I saw your story on the news. He said, I got a wife and I got three daughters. And he said, When I watched your story, you made humor about what happened to you. He said, I was about to leave my wife and my three daughters. And he said, I said, Man, if that guy can hang in there, he can fight for what he's dealing with. Surely I can hang in there and I can fight for my wife and my three daughters. And he just walked off.

Wow, that's powerful.

And bro, it made me realize that, like I always say to people, man, like when we go through things in life, the first thing we try to do is understand it. We want to know, why am I going through this? Why did this happen to me? I'm like, nah, man, some things you're gonna go through, it's gonna be so tough, you're not gonna understand it right away. Just survive it, right? And once we survive it, then we get to a place of peace. Hopefully we understand it, but then it's time to go out, share it, try to add value to certain environments we go into in certain people's lives.

Yeah.

So shortly after that two years, I felt like I had survived it and I got to a place of peace to where it was like, all right, let's move forward.

Yeah, that's powerful, man. I think for a lot of people listening, it's hard to understand why something has happened to them.

Absolutely.

Why did I go through this breakup? Why did I get fired from this thing? Why did I have this injury? Why did is this happening in the world? Why are people fighting with each other? Why?

Absolutely.

And it's not until we can get through it and reflect on it, then we have hindsight. Oh, this taught me this lesson or here's why this needed to happen or... And now I think about, if I look back in my life, I'm 39 now and I think about all the challenging moments, I wouldn't change any of them. There's some things that seemed so painful that I didn't want to experience. But the lesson that I learned from them, the person I became by overcoming them is so much more powerful than not having them.

Wow.

Right?

Absolutely.

That's how I feel. Strong. And so when challenging things happen, which I don't like when they happen, but it's not fun, man. It's not fun.

It doesn't feel good.

It doesn't feel good. But when challenging things happen now, I feel like I can put myself in a place of peace for moments and say, everything that has been hard in the past has all worked out. And it's taught me something or it's let go of something in my life, even if it's the worst thing ever seeming to me. And I'm grateful for them all. So let me look into the future and have hindsight in the future and start realizing, I don't know why this is gonna be powerful, but I'm gonna give this meaning. It's gonna help me or help someone else in the future because I'm learning this lesson.

That's good.

And that has given me peace in the chaos.

Yeah, man.

Doesn't mean I like the chaos. I'm not looking for it. I don't want it. Stay away from me. But I feel like that strategy has given me a sense of like, okay, this eventually will pass and hopefully I'll have some tools and knowledge based on that.

That's good, man.

Do you wish Do you ever think about it and wish you would have tackled differently? Or are you grateful with everything that's happened the way it's happened?

You know, to be honest, man, somebody comes up to me almost every week and say to me, like, be honest, man. You said you wouldn't change what happened to you. Like, be honest. Like, you said you wouldn't change what happened to you. Why? Right? Because for most people, when they look at adversity and opposition, If a person goes through something that's traumatic, right, trauma, whatever the case may be, the average person's perspective is going to go to a space and place, what did you lose? How did it affect you? What did you have to sacrifice? What did you have to give up? People very rarely were asked the question, man, what did you learn from it?

What did you gain?

What did you gain? Ooh. Right? How did it make you a better per... I know it didn't feel good. That's obvious. I know it hurt. Right, I know you didn't like it it wasn't convenient but like what did you gain from it? I just want to know right from the loss, from the pain, right. And so, for me it was such a traumatic experience to where I was searching for the good. It was so traumatic.

There is no good.

It was so traumatic to where I'm like all right God like what's like what is this man this hurts like I don't like this like why did this show up at this point in time? I remember being like, God, just let me make it to the NFL, get the contract, help my family. And then like we could go through something like just let me help my mom, help my grandma, help my cousins. Like when I was a kid man, I remember saying to my cousins like, if I make it to the league man, we can get our own beds one day, right? We just wanted our own beds, right? And so, when it happened, I remember seeing certain things happen. that it caught my attention, right? But I was so in the midst of what had happened to me that it just caught my attention. I think the beautiful thing about adversity and opposition, when you live with it, it teaches you, right? If you're open to it, right? When you live with challenges, it teaches you. And so, the reason that I wouldn't change what happened to me or go back and even change the incident is because of not only the man that it shaped and molded me into, but the way it's impacted those close to me, right? My mother and my father, their relationship was fractured majority of my life.

Yes.

Like I'm talking about, were they living together or no? No, no, like never, right? And so they couldn't even.

How many kids does your mom have?

My mom just got me and my sister.

Yeah.

Yeah, and so my dad, he's married and he has two daughters as well, but when they had me, they were teenagers, right? And so, My dad's trying to figure it out. Mom is trying, young, right?

They don't have tools. No, no. They don't know how to connect with each other or communicate or- None of that. Deal with conflict.

None of that, man.

Act like a child.

That's it. Act like a child, have a child.

Yeah.

And so it created a lot of hurt, a lot of resentment on both ends. And so for me, when I started growing up, I had a level of resentment toward my father that I very rarely spoke about. And so I would speak to him and we would be cordial when we got to the point of communication. For a long time I resented him. And so my mother and my father could very rarely be in a room and it'd be peace. Right. Very rarely. When my injury happened, they had to be in a room. It had to be peace because it was a much bigger issue at hand. They didn't know if they were gonna have to amputate my, they didn't know any of that, right? But fast forward a bit, What's happened not only in my life, but in my family's life, it's been phenomenal. Like my mother and my father can be in the same space and place, in the same room, wonderful grandparents. My father came and lived with me for 30 days after my injury under the same roof, helped take me to rehab for my arm, take me to class, wash my clothes, like what it did for our relationship. what it did for my family's relationships, what it did for me and my buddies, my friends, right? Guys tying my shoes, our connection, what that produced. Like it was phenomenal, right? The way it shaped and molded my perspective in my life and how I treat people, right? Not that I was a bad person before because I wasn't. It's just the way that it shaped and molded my perspective and how I view this thing called life every single day, right? Because of what you just spoke about. When you go through something, I asked the guy this, Louis, I was in St. Louis speaking, pandemic, one of my live trips during the pandemic. And I said, Can somebody tell me something good that's happened as a result of the pandemic? Lady stands up. She says, My mother lives in Japan. I get to speak to her every single day. I know if I was working the same schedule, I never would have got the opportunity to have those moments. Gentleman stands up in the back of the room. A man looked like he's supposed to been in the movie 300. Traps up to his ears, to my yoked up, Louis, right? Starts bawling and he says, I'm thankful I got to watch my first child being born. Crying. He said, I knew for a fact if I was working the same schedule, I never would have got the opportunity to witness that moment. He said, what's something you thankful for, Ink? I said, man, I'm thankful for 3 p.m. He said, why 3 p.m.? I said, man, I get to race cats and be the first one in the carpool line, right? He was like, the carpool line? Really? I was like, yeah, the carpool line. I was like, but not the carpool line. He's like, what you mean by that? I said, the carpool line is extremely important. I get to pick my kids up from school most days. Phenomenal. Love it, right? I said, but more than that, it's about, can I condition my mindset and my perspective that when uncertainty happens, opposition happens, adversity happens, I can put my mind, my perspective in a space and place to extract some good, right? And so with adversity in opposition with my arm, I got a paralyzed right arm and hand. My perspective, my drive, my dedication, my commitment, my essence, my ethos, the thing that makes me ink, it never got paralyzed. That was just my identity in sport.

Yes.

That's what people knew me by in sport. But who I am as a man, that never got paralyzed, right? I'm extremely grateful for that. My right arm and hand gets paralyzed, I get to go to disability services and learn how to write with my left arm and hand. Like I get to try different things, right? I get to go up to the Mayo Clinic and my first visit there, I sit down and I come out of a room to where they had just shot four needles in my back full of dye. I'm talking about biggest needles I've ever seen in my life. I sit down, I'm feeling sorry for myself. A little kid had to be 10 years old, sits down, I don't know what the condition was. A mother sits down on one side of her, father sits down on the opposite side of her, and it's like they're holding skin up on her face. And I was like, Man, I just got an arm and a hand. But I got put in those environments, and I got to see that. Extremely thankful and grateful. Most people don't get to see things like that on a daily basis. That conditions the mindset and the perspective to look for good in the midst of adversity, opposition, or uncertainty. I tell people all the time, man, the easiest thing in the world to do is to be negative.

So easy.

Easiest thing in the world to do is complain. Easiest thing in the world to do is to quit. That's easy. Me and you both can walk out of this building and see something on the streets of LA and say, man, that's whack. and complain about it. Or we can look at it and say, you know what man, that's really unfortunate. But if they did this, if they can change this about it, I think that can be a beautiful situation. That's a gift and that's a talent that not everybody has. And it's extremely underrated. Extremely underrated. But it's extremely powerful when used in the right manner.

How did you learn to have the positive perspective in the pain and in the trauma?

Mm-.

Like was there someone helping you get out of that or did you just flip the switch into that mindset?

Yeah, I would, I would say part of how I grew up. You go up in that two bedroom house with 14 people, you don't have a lot of choices in terms of what you gonna eat, you know, how much of it can you get. Like I remember watching my mother count change. in a old Buick Regal, man. Never forget this. And she was counting up change. She had a few dollars in there. She was trying to get me a pair of cleats. Never forget it. Shaped and molded my perspective at practice, how I practice. Like, if you ask any coach that ever happened you on their team, let them be like, man, that cat, you should practice hard, because I remember moments like that. I remembered as a kid, my uncles would stand on the corner all night engaging in their illegal activity, come in the house, take the clothes off that they were on the corner in all night wearing 2X t-shirt, put it on me, I'm 135 pounds, and I wear it to school the next morning. I remember me and my cousins coming in 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, spinning it around. 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, can't wait till we wear them Nikes. We're gonna race like 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. We 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 gonna race tomorrow. And I'll never forget, 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. 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, Ink, 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 know what I'm saying? But 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, right? 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? 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 wanna touch on it. It was extremely difficult when I first started going out with my arm. It was extremely difficult, you know, because-.

Were you single at the time or did you have a girl at the time or?

No, me and my wife, you know, we've been on and off, you know. She's had more patience with me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. you were with her or on and off with her?

Yeah, on and off. But she was always there, man. It was my immaturity.

Sure.

But my arm, it's just naturally smaller. And so when I first started going out sleeve, and I would go out and either people would shy away, which would hurt in the early years, A person would just look, right? Like, man, what is that? And very few people would ask, right, when I started going out with my sleeve, very few people would say, just in terms of if I'm out in an area, like if I'm at Habitat for Humanity, I'm there with the football team. So it's all good. People are gonna 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 like 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.

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You know what I considered to be poverty, man, because I thought football was gonna 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 as you can.

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.

You don't want to go back to your family?

Yeah, to have to grow up the way I grew up, my kids, or go back to that environment. And I love 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 guys feel like in your childhood you're still dealing with or you're running from? And 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 was like, well, stop running. And in its simplicity, it was yet profound, but it was simple, right? 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. How old were you then?

How old were you?

I was 36 now. I was probably 30.

Okay, six years ago.

Yeah.

You're about to pay your biggest check ever.

Yeah, 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 start negotiating with her. I'm negotiating with her.

It's your birthday, we got four, we can have it.

I'm working it out. I'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 could send you and grandma to the spa. I can come back right after that. We can work. I got it all figured out. 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. 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 the birthday. Two days later, think it was something about, might have been some socks or something at the house, something small. 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? Non-renewable, my wife will never get another 30th birthday. My son will never have another 10th birthday. My daughter will 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 by having the right intentions while doing damage. The right intention. I 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 $100,000 gig on her birthday?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I used to say, Nah, sorry. Sorry, Nike. Nah, I can't come and see you.

Nah, we good. Go, go.

Right.

We good? Yeah, but man, just trying to communicate, you know, that's a skill that I don't think is 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? Why do you think people hold on to it so long?

I think just the nature of the impact. when it happens, right? And how it stuns their life, right? Like, I have one of my friends who is a high level coach, division one coach that ended up getting fired and 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. He said, 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. Because 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 deconstructed to. And so therefore we hold on to the feelings that the trauma may have given us, right? The feelings that the adversity and the 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, Louis, 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. And so I take adversity and opposition and I interconnect it the same way. When we go through things it 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, is something wrong with me? And I think what happens when we go through and we create a level of empathy, we show them that, no, man, you're human. Like, we all go through things. Like, nobody is perfect. Like, I told a guy that had a brachio plexus injury. He's like, man, I see how you got through it. Like, 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? Do 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'll 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'd have played ball, if God would have blessed me to go to the NFL...

Played for a few years.

Played for a few years. I'd have just faded to black, man. I'd have helped the people near and dear to me probably. They would have knew me, but I wouldn't have been out in front of the world, sharing or traveling. It 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 played ball, and I think about that often, if I had played ball, went out, got a couple 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. I 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.

Yeah.

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. And 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, I saw this story, it helped me hang in there with my family. 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. That can never get to the point in my life to where I'm like, Oh, they're just saying that because I never imagined, I 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, empathy, and always being willing to extend the 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, the quicker you can extract a lesson from it, the quicker you can glean perspective from it. And for all of us, we're going to encounter those defining moments in our lives, right, to where it's going to hurt, right? You went through it. I went through it. I remember I said to somebody like, Man, it felt like I was in a boxing match and I just got KO'd. Life just knocked me out, bro. And I'm on the mat trying to find my mouthpiece, right? I'm like spitting out blood. I see him over there counting, right? I'm looking at my guy in the corner, he want to throw in the towel, I'm like, Not yet. And I find the strength to muster up, to get myself up, be like, All right, let's go. I'm ready. Now I'll never forget that person saying, you, know what? life is so cold-blooded you're gonna get knocked out like that again. And again and again. So the challenge is will you learn the lessons from it so the lessons doesn't have to keep getting repeated and you keep having to learn it. Right. So when you go through these things of opposition, adversity and challenge, it's always a lesson. It's always a blessing. It's up to us to extract it. and if we're so concerned with trying to understand why, why, why, we're gonna miss the lesson, right? We're gonna miss the blessing, and the lesson is going to keep repeating itself.

I know that from right repeating certain relationships over and over again.

We all got. Got things like that, man. It's like, would I. Like, I got two kids. I always try to teach them, like, one. One of our big things is. Attitude drives performance, right? Attitude drives performance. I say to them all the time, when you get negative and you get frustrated, what does it do to your performance? Like it goes bad, it just gets bigger and bigger, negative and negative. I'm like, Exactly. And so when it doesn't turn out the way you want it to turn out and you get negative, the lesson is just going to repeat itself until you graduate, right? Until you learn how to celebrate the pain. Celebrate, my son, sometimes he'll come out, go five for five, right? Might get two home runs, right? Other times he'll come out, go 0 for five, right? When you go 0 for five, are you going to start huffing and puffing and then you got to get the lesson repeated again? Or are you going to learn at a certain point to say, all right, man, it's baseball.

It happens.

So what? Clap it up, cheer on your teammate and say, you know what? Today I'm not getting it done on the offensive side. Defense, I got you. Right? Sometimes I'm not getting it done on this side. I got you. And so that's the key to life. I think sometimes when things don't go our way, the quote says it. You judge the true character and caliber of a person not by where they stand in times of comfort and convenience. You judge the true character and caliber of a person by where they stand in times of challenge and controversy. Right? It's an incredible thing and character can be cultivated in the midst of opposition and adversity. That's the reason it says it. It's King's quote. It doesn't say you judge character by how a person responds when everything is going good. They know how you're going to respond.

Right.

Happy go lucky, celebrate, hand clap, great hippie parade. But when things go wrong, things don't go the way you want them to, they don't unfold the way you want them to, who are you? Because that's the true test of who you are as a person. That's your true character. That's the essence and the ethos of who you are as a person. Everybody is going to smile when the sun's shining, man. But the song says it. Can you stand the rain, baby? It says it. And so in light, can you stand the rain? That's the true test of character.

I love the Love Remember the Titans.

Oh, that's one of my favorite movies.

Man, I think I was in college when that came out.

That's one of my favorite movies.

And we all watch the, you know, we all watch the Night Before Game.

Oh, that's the joint. That's one of my favorite movies.

Attitude reflect leadership, captain. You know? That's where it's at.

How real is that though? That's real, man.

That's true, man.

That's real. And you know the crazy thing, Lou is like, attitude is a small thing that we often underestimate. but we really can control that.

Absolutely. Dude, I, there's, when I bring someone on our team, we've got 20 people on our team now.

Nice.

And when I bring people on, obviously we look for skill set and experience on all these different things, make sure they have certain skills. But I tell people over and over again, they're probably sick of me saying it, that the things I care about the most is your attitude, your energy and your effort.

Mm-. Because we can teach you a lot.

Of the things that you need to know. We can get you a consultant we can hire, we can get you a course, we can get you whatever to learn that a skill better. Absolutely.

Right?

We can get coached up on a skill. It's hard to get coached up on attitude and energy and effort. It's got to come from within. You've got to make a decision and a choice. I'm going to have a positive attitude. I'm going to have a attitude of gratitude or appreciation or whatever it might be. in this moment, even when it's not going my way.

Absolutely.

Even when I'm going, you know, things are going off in my life or I just feel sluggish, can I shift my attitude? Can I have a different energy? And can I give effort?

Yeah.

You know, you appreciate the guy who maybe isn't that skilled on basketball or football, but he's always diving for the ball. Absolutely. You're just like, Man, man, he's doing.

What I wish I was doing this.

You know, he's making me look bad. That's the man. The hustle. that's just like, it doesn't have the height or the speed or the strength, but he's willing to hustle and fight, right? And I think it's the attitude, the energy, and the effort you put into your relationship, your career, your health, which will dictate the quality of your life in a big way. But if we have negative attitude, negative energy, and negative effort, you can't expect great things to happen to you.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

So, that's good.

Attitude is everything. I don't think it's a small thing. I think it is the thing.

Absolutely.

That's good. And that's good.

I think that's good.

What did Lombardi say, his quote? If you're not fired up with enthusiasm, you'll be fired with enthusiasm.

Yeah, that's the quote. That's strong. Right?

It's like if you're not strong, you're not allowed an attitude of enthusiasm in what you're doing, even when it's painful. Try to be enthusiastic and you'll make it a more enjoyable experience.

That's true.

That's strong. Those three days, I don't know if you ever did three days, but we did those. I think I might have stopped when you were.

Yeah, yeah, we was at two days.

Because a couple kids like died in high school at. It was like my senior year, 2001, a couple kids in the country died of like heat exhaustion. So we used to do three a days, then they cut it back to two because of that. And, but I remember thinking like, and we had like a military coach in high school.

Yeah.

And it was like no water break. It was like you just push through, you're just doing Merpees for hours. You know, everything, dude, fumble the ball and everyone's running a mile, whatever it is. And then back in there, and it was painful, man. But I just remember thinking, this is only gonna last two hours, you know, or three hours.

Yeah.

Can I get through this, you know, and try to have a positive attitude in this time frame? Then I can rest.

I want to ask you something. Just listening to you. Do you think mental toughness is a skill? What's your thoughts on the Atlas Obscura podcast?

I think you gotta develop it. I think it's trained. I think it's something you develop for sure. Explore the world's hidden wonders on the Atlas Obscura podcast. A village in India where everyone's name is a song. A boiling river in the Amazon. A spacecraft cemetery in the middle of the ocean. Every day, the Atlas Obscura podcast will blow your mind in 15 minutes. You can find it on the SiriusXM app, Pandora, or wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget to follow the show so you never miss an episode.

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OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota, all loans and amounts subject to lender approval. I don't think many people have it like as a kid, you've got to develop it.

Absolutely.

And sports has been the way that I know to develop it. I know musicians develop it as well in a big way because they practice and they're dedicated to a craft. But I think it's, I don't think you're just born with mental toughness. I think certain things happen that cause you to have to step up. Bingo. Right? There's some type of adversity or you're, you know, don't have the connection with your parents the way you wanted or you're picked on and bullied and you have to endure.

Bingo.

You either endure or you just fall behind.

Bingo.

I think that enduring energy coupled with the emotions behind it keep you going. So I was driven mostly to prove people wrong as a kid because I was picked on, right? And I was going through some stress at home. And so I was just trying to prove everyone wrong in my life and I was willing to do whatever it took to prove the people who made fun of me wrong. Yeah. And so I developed mental toughness in a negative sense, which made me more angry and reactive when things didn't go my way in sports. It would drive me to be the best I could be, but I was a really sore loser. Yeah. And I was, you know, you hit me, I just wanted to hit you back. You know, I didn't respond well.

Yeah, get that lick back.

And so I had to learn the lesson so many times until I was like, okay, I need to be better than that. the situation. I need to rise above it. I can't react to everything because then.

I'm on the bench.

No doubt. So you get on the bench enough, you get kicked out of the game enough for like, oh, I can't play. Done. So I had to learn how to manage the emotions at some extent.

Yeah.

But that was a. That was a challenging thing, man. But when we want something bad enough, I think you're willing to be mentally tough. Absolutely. You have to be. Absolutely. But if you don't want it bad enough, then you're. I don't care about it. You don't have, like, a meaning. attached to the thing you want. And I was so committed to accomplishments to get accepted and to be praised by others because I wasn't accepted and praised by others. And I would go years, a decade to accomplish my goal in sports. And when I would accomplish all these big goals, I wasn't happy still. It's because I was trying to get acceptance from others, but I didn't accept myself. So it wasn't until I shifted it when I said, I'm doing this because I want to be in service of others through my art, my expression, my inspiration. And I'm doing it because I purely love what I'm creating, what I'm doing, and I accept myself. Then I started to actually enjoy the process. It wasn't about winning, it was about the process.

That's good. That's good.

And I think it's hard for us to truly love what we do until we fully accept who we are.

Yeah.

It's really hard.

Yeah, that's good. It's hard to love what we do until we fully accept who we are. That's strong.

I think so, man.

That's strong.

We can enjoy the things we're doing, but if we don't accept who we are, then we're doing it from a place of lack. We're doing it from a place of unwholeness. If we don't accept who we are, then we're not whole.

Yeah.

And so we're giving it an energy that is not a true pure love.

Absolutely.

It's like I'm doing something I enjoy, but for what reason? To make myself whole, to like prove to others, to impress other people.

Yeah.

But we should just be doing it from a whole centered place.

Yeah. Yeah. That's good.

That's my thought.

I love that, man. I love that.

What do you think is the.

The. I love that.

What is the biggest struggle you're facing with now? Is it, you know, your parent, you're. You're a father of two kids. Yeah. They're about to be teenagers. There's about to be a whole new world. You know, you've been doing your speaking career for 15 years now, essentially, you know, 12 to 15 years.

Yeah.

What is the biggest challenge you face today?

The biggest challenge I face now, you know, not I really don't look at it like, you know how it is as athletes, we thrive off challenges, right? like, you thrive off of it. But, you know, I would say, man, fatherhood has really pulled the element and the side out of me that, you know, has really served me well. Right? Because we're blessed with two beautiful kids, 11 year old daughter, 10 year old son, totally different in terms of how they view life, how they approach life and how they do things. Of course, my son is like my wife. It's total opposite. My daughter is like me, right? And so, some of the tactics early on that I would try to use with my son, it wouldn't work. And my wife is phenomenal. My wife, you know, at one point in her life, she was an educator, teacher, loved kids, right? And so, communicating with kids for her comes second nature. You know, I'm more like- Tough enough. A coach. Yeah, yeah.

Get up, yeah, let's go, right?

And so, I leaned on her a lot, and she would share things with me. Like, I remember, My daughter, man, I had this moment it broke my heart, man. But it broke my heart, but it created extreme revelation. Like it was a light bulb moment, but it hurt me as a father. Like when my daughter was probably, say, eight. And I would have this mentality, whenever they would do something great, I was the guy that would see it. you know, and be like, man, that was great. That was cool. But if you do this, it would have helped you get that. If you did that, it helped you get this, right? I was that dude because that was the way I was wired and how I looked at things coming up, you know, just in sports and life, because I was that type of person. And I'll never forget, my daughter came out one day after school, sitting in the carpool line. She comes out, she has, like, a test grade. She had like a, maybe like a 89. And she gets in the car and she was like, Dad, I got an 89 on my test. She was like, you, probably don't think it's that good, but I'm really proud of myself. Like, I worked really hard. I gave it everything I had, right? And I was like, Man, I became that guy. like, I make my kids feel like nothing is ever good enough. And I remember talking to my wife that night, and I shared with her what Jada said, and I was like, man, that really hurt me. Like, as a father, that hurt, bro. Like, I get emotional about it. That hurt me, you know what I'm saying? Because I never wanted my kids or want my kids. to ever feel like, I don't care if you do your best and you get a C. Like as your father, I got your back and I'm gonna love you and I'm gonna be proud of you regardless. Like I'm gonna ride with you regardless. I'm your dude, you know what I'm saying? And I was like, man, that really hurt me that I made her feel that way that she had to say like, Dad, you might not think this is much, but I'm really proud of myself, right? And my wife says something to me and she said, you know, sometimes, Inc., we can be so focused on who a person can become that we forget to acknowledge who they are and where they are. She's like, sometimes we just gotta acknowledge who they are and where they are. Make it 89 and they gave their best at it. Hey man, great job. Sometimes they're gonna have a 95, sometimes they're gonna have a 104, right? But as their father, it's my job to always be supportive, to always be empathetic, to always be understanding. Of course, correction comes, accountability comes, but at the end of the day, they should always know that I'm gonna be loving, I'm gonna be understanding, and if you do your best and you say that's your best, Effort, that's enough. That's big, yeah.

I can live with that. One of the things, I think that's beautiful, and one of the things I learned from Kobe when I interviewed him, he said something similar. Like for one season, when he was like 12, either 11, 12 or 13, he played basketball for like a summer league, and he didn't score one point the whole time. Like the whole summer. All the games he said he didn't score one point. I go, Really? And he goes, yeah. and I went and talked to my father. And the reason I knew it was okay is because my dad said that he was gonna love me whether I score all the points or no points. So it gave him permission to even go harder because he's like, I'm gonna still feel loved.

No doubt.

Even if I fail or don't score or don't do the thing. And he said it was a very powerful experience for him to not score and not succeed and still be loved.

That's strong, man.

So I think it's a, you know, it's a good reminder for us. And I think it could go another way where it's like, hey, you can do whatever you want and I still love you. And they're like, okay, I'll just sit around on the couch. So you gotta have some, like, the.

Drive also inside of you.

But, you know, you gotta manage that somehow. No question.

No one to push the buttons, but-- oh, no question, man.

No question. You gotta know your people, too. Exactly.

You gotta know 'em.

He was driven also to keep winning. You have to keep learning, so.

You gotta know your people, man.

What's the biggest lesson being married has taught you since going through this adversity really together and then kind of rising in your career and your kind of celebrity and your personal brand? How has that worked in your marriage?

It's made me realize that my job is not to change my wife. My job is to love my wife unconditionally. You know, because we all involve ourselves, whether it be relationships in terms of personal marriage or relationships in terms of people, friends, you know, compadres, whatever the case may be. Like when I was early in my marriage, you know, me and my wife, I'm sure I did things that got on her nerves, right? I would be speaking in the mirror when I'm trying to learn how to speak. speak, right? Doing certain things. And she did certain things that I was like, man, like, I'm not feeling that, right? And so I had a cousin, right? He got married young. I'm talking about young. I'm talking about right when he graduated high school, his joke was married. I've been married for years.

Wow. Right?

And so I called him one day and I'm complaining to him, right? And he'd been married for a while. I'm complaining, man. Yeah, she does this. Then she does this and I'm really not feeling that. He listened and he was like, you know you do stuff that get on her nerves too, right? Right. I was like, yeah, yeah, but man, this bothers. He was like, man, listen. He said, your job is not to change your wife. Your job is to love your wife for who she is. Like, she got delivered to you. Like, your job is to love her, right? And it was a period in my life because of certain things that I may didn't agree with and there were certain things she didn't agree with me. that I thought I was supposed to present them to her and she was supposed to change them. Because for most of us, when it comes to love, I feel like we love the version of people that suits us, right? We love the version of them that suits us. We don't always love them unconditionally, like who they are unapologetically, who they're not. We don't always love people like that. We love the version of them that suits us and makes us feel well about ourselves. and so, for me in terms of my growth and my marriage like, I love my wife, right? Because she not only holds me accountable, right? But she makes me better and we've been rocking since fifth grade and so, if nobody else on the planet Earth knows me, she knows me, right? She knows when I'm not feeling something, she knows when my energy is off, she knows when I'm having a tough time, she could just sense it. And so for me, it's been my growth and my challenge in terms of just trying to be a better man. Because I look at it like this. If I get toward the latter years of my life, man, and I journal, like I journal to my wife, I journal to both of my kids, and I journal to myself. I got four journals that I write in every single day, right, that I haven't presented to them yet.

Wow.

Right, but I just write in them every single day to where I write down why I make decisions, choices, why I do certain things. And the reason I do that is because, you know, when my time comes, right? And God forbid something happens, whatever happens. And, you know, our people come up to people, right? Kids, spouse, whatever the case may be. They say, hey, man, let me tell you about your father. Let me tell you about your husband.

Right.

And, you know, I would like to think that my kids and my wife, they're gonna listen, right? Because of the type of people they are. But I also want them to have something that they can refer back to, like a life guide. They can say, man, I know exactly who my dad is. I live with him every single day. But also, he left me this, right? That explains our values, our morals, our principles, why he did certain things, why he lived by certain things, right? Why he made me do certain things.

Right?

Because if I get toward the latter years of my life and, you know, somebody comes up to him and say, Man, he was a great athlete. That could be cool. And that's all they talk about. I fail as a man, as a father, as a person. And so I want my wife and my children to always know, like, no, that's a real dude. That's our guy. That's not a public success, but behind closed doors, he's a private failure. Nah, that's our God. Like he is who he is. And so I worked just as hard at being a husband and a father than I do at anything else in my life.

That's beautiful to hear, man. My dad just passed in February a few months ago. Yeah, I'm sorry to hear that. Thanks, man. And it was kind of a sad thing because he had a brain injury. He got a car accident. 17 years ago. So he was in a coma for three months after his accident. Then he woke up and he was never the same. You know, he had this brain trauma car hit him on top of the forehead through his car. And he just, he had to learn how to read, how to write, how to talk again, how to do it function as a human. So it was like he was a five-year-old again, almost in an adult body. And so emotionally, I wasn't able to connect with him the same way. Eventually he was able to communicate and you could have normal conversations, but certain things were off where, you know, he would forget a lot. He, you know, so it was the same conversation every time I saw him. It was kind of like, hey, where'd you go to play? You play football in college, right? And he came to every game, right? So he's asking, where'd you go to school again? And so we could communicate, but it wasn't all functional. so for 17 years, I didn't get to have that relationship with him. Right? He was there, but it wasn't the same.

Yeah.

But he wrote letters that I still have today from, from when I was 15.

Wow.

And I kept those letters and I get to see the way he thought, the way he loved, the way he learns. And those are very meaningful to me, those letters, to have that, because for 17 years, I didn't get anything from him. I didn't get letters, I didn't get. a phone call because he just wasn't there mentally, right? So it wasn't his fault. He was just the brain trauma. But those letters are very meaningful. And so that you're the reason you're doing that. I think it's really powerful just for you and gonna be for them. Another thing we had his funeral here in February and all of his old friends came out who I hadn't seen in a long time. And they got to share stories about who he was back then. beyond, you know, 17 years ago when we kind of remember him before the accident. It was beautiful that they came out and said, this is the man your father really was. And here's how he showed up for me. And this is the type of character he had in the community. And it was really touching and emotional for me to meet these older men and women who were talking about him that way. Because for 17 years, it was so hard because it was kind of like we lost the man who was. But those memories didn't die with them. The impact didn't die. The connection didn't die. And so I'm really glad you're doing that for your wife and for your kids, man.

Man, that's the first time I've heard somebody say that they've had something like that.

Yeah.

That's strong, man.

Yeah, it was strong. It was beautiful. It made it really meaningful during a time that I couldn't find meaning within 17 years.

Wow.

It was like, why did this accident happen without When I felt like I needed him the most. You know what I mean? When I got injured in my injury and stopped playing right after his injury and I didn't have him to lean on anymore. So it became this like challenge. But to hear those stories and to have those letters was a beautiful part of the journey for me. So I'm glad you're doing that, man.

That's strong.

I'm really glad you're doing that. If you could only, let's hypothetical, this isn't gonna happen, but say hypothetical scenario, you don't get to give those journals to them. And you only get to share one message with your kids. What would you say to them? And they could hold on to this message forever, but it could only be one message. What would that message be?

Enjoy every aspect of life. Enjoy every aspect of life and don't waste any experience. because I feel like for most of us, we enjoy the good parts, right? And for most of us, most days are good days, right? But we often waste experiences that don't show up or turn out the way that we want them to. And I feel like that's a big mistake because in those experiences are some of the greatest lessons and the greatest opportunities to shape and mold us into beautiful people, right? And so when I say enjoy every aspect of life, Enjoy everything, ups, downs, successes, failures, highs, lows, like everything, right? Because in the end, it's the culmination of all of that that shapes Lewis. It's the culmination of all of that that shapes Ink. It's the culmination of all of that that will shape who they will become. And so enjoy all of it. Don't waste any of it, man. On the days where it's great, hit Pepé Ray, celebrate it. Days when it's not celebrated, it might be hard, but celebrate it. Like, enjoy it, right? Tough times don't last always. Tough people do. We hear it all the time, but everything passes with time, right? And so I just tell them, enjoy every aspect of life and don't waste experiences.

A couple of years ago, I looked up, I was curious to figure out how many people die every day. I was just Googled it and it said on average 150,000 people die every day. or in the world, just for whatever, every cause. And every time I think of maybe I'm going through something sad or a challenging moment, I think 150,000 people didn't wake up today and I did.

Amen.

Just for that reason alone, it's a beautiful day.

Absolutely.

And I think it's any way we can find perspective is powerful. It doesn't mean we shouldn't feel our feelings and we grieve and go through sadness and cry and all these things. Don't stuff these feelings, but I think it's, you don't want to stay in those feelings forever, because they hold us back from service, from being there for our loved ones, our friends, our family, our team, our community, and our creator. And it's like, what can we do with the tools and the skills that our creator has given us to be of service to the next person?

Absolutely.

Whether it's hundreds of people, millions of people, or one person, Absolutely. Focusing on that, like you said, is the greatest gift when we give it to someone else, not when we buy something for ourselves.

Yeah, man.

And use that with your tools and your story as well. If you could only share one thing with your wife and she didn't get your journal, what's the thing you'd say to her?

I think I would say to my wife, this is funny, man, because this past this past anniversary. Our anniversary was in April and she had to be.

How many years?

We were on 11. And she had to be. She had to be in Orlando with my daughter at a cheer competition.

Oh, you should have said, oh, it's our anniversary. Where you at?

And I was, I was with my son. And so I sent her a little text and a little message and I was like, I'm there. I'm there. She was, you're not here. like y'all in Atlanta. So I was like, no, I'm there. I'm always there. Like, no matter where you go, I'm gonna always be there, right? A piece of me will always be with you, and a piece of you will always be with me, right? Because of who we are and how we've grown throughout life. We've been together since we were kids, like talking 10 years old.

Crazy.

Like been at it for a long time. And so the one thing that my wife lost both for her parents when she was young, like elementary school, she lost both of them. So she was raised by her grandmother. And I always felt like my wife was a gift to me, right? Because when my wife, you know, even when we was young, I felt like God delivered my wife to me, like as a gift.

That's beautiful. Right?

Her spirit, right? What she had been through in life, the hurt she had endured. And so I felt like it was always my job to protect the heart. to protect her. She was being raised by a grandmother, grandmother, elderly lady. And so for me with my wife, I always want her to know that you got this, babe. Like I always tell her, you got this. And what you got this is, is everything. You got this, right? As a parent, you got this, right? If it's ever a time when I'm not there, me and my son was in a pretty bad accident last year. flipped over.

Wow.

Like, yeah, man. Yeah. Like, flipped over. By the grace of God, we both made it out. I had a little scratch on my arm.

Like, car flipped.

Car flipped. Damn. So I thought it was about to flip off the ramp.

Was this icy or snowy or something?

Rain and storm.

Dang.

And we both made it out. And I'll never forget. Yeah, it was scary, man. And we got out of the car. I'm getting caught with my wife. and the whole car is just crying. But she was, like, pouring, like, man, I almost lost y'all, right? And it was a tough moment. But I remember, like, just thinking that night, like, man, have I prepared my wife? Like, if there was ever a time to where she had to move forward without me. And so for me, my message to her is always, babe, you got this, right? It's preparation. you got it, right? And so for me, that would be my message to my girl. Like, if there's ever a time where I'm not present and Lord forbid something happens to me, you got this. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. It's like that word we hear when we're young from a coach or a parent, that belief that injects belief in us, right? Like, hey, Louis, man, you got this. When you're young, you try to figure it out and you remember it, right? Hey, ain't man, you got this man. I'm telling you, you know, I'm a smaller guy.

Yeah, right.

And you remember those things, man. It's the simple things in life that people don't think always makes a big difference that when a person gets a loan or person really needs something like that they can rely on to get through adversity, opposition or just a rough patch. You remember things like that. You remember them letters your father wrote.

Absolutely, man.

You know, like you remembered that. And so just sometimes simple words of, hey man, you got it.

Remember the Titans. I got a couple final questions for you, but I want people to follow you. InkyJohnson.com, Inky Johnson on social media, Inky Johnson Motivate on Instagram as well. Is that where you spend the most time, Instagram?

Yeah, yeah. be on IG and Twitter, man. You know, every day I jump on Twitter and IG, but yeah. Nice.

We'll make sure to follow you over there. And if anyone listening or watching wants an incredible speaker at one of your events, then make sure to go to inkyjohnson.com and, and, and send you an email and my guy, see if, see if he's available. He's an in-demand guy. You know, you never know when he's available, so make sure you schedule it a year in advance, get the discount for next year, but pay it in advance now. You know what I mean?

Pool of greatness.

You know what I'm saying?

That's right.

That's it, man. Anything else we can do to support you? Man, following you online and checking out your stuff.

Yeah, you know, and I won't say this in like a cheesy way, but like, you know, we always look at the world, all of us, right? And when something happens, right? Like you see the mass shootings that happen or whatever the case may be. and we all see things that happen in the world, man, and our heart hurts, you know what I'm saying? Whether you see. And we can't control it, you know what I'm saying? Things happen sometimes. It's just out of our control. And you always think about, like, man, what can I do? It's just something I can do and just go out, man, and just be a good person, man. Like, it don't cost nothing to go out and offer a kind word to a person every day. It don't cost nothing. that go through a random act of kindness, it don't cost nothing to go out and just share a word of encouragement to somebody. Like every day just doing our part to make the world a better place. It doesn't take anything grand, right? Like it doesn't take anything special. Just go out every single day and do our part and just watch the triple effect of that when we go out and we serve, you know what I'm saying? And so just make the world a better place, man.

Be a kind human being.

That's the key, man. It don't cost a thing. It doesn't. You know what I'm saying?

Just go out and be a good person, man. This question is called the Three Truths. So imagine hypothetical, it's your last day on Earth, many years away. You get to live as long as you want to live. 100, 200, however long you want to live. But eventually you gotta turn the lights off. All right. And you gotta go to the next place. You get to accomplish all your dreams. Live your life, see your kids grow up, all these different things. But for whatever reason, you got to take all of your message with you. This interview is gone, anything you create online is gone, books, anything you create is gone.

Gotcha.

The journals are gone. Your family doesn't have the journals. All the other things, another hypothetical.

Right, right.

But you get to leave behind three lessons to the whole world. Three things you know to be true from your existence. and that's it. What would you share? Your three truths.

My three truths would be the first one. This too shall pass. Whatever you encounter, whatever you go through. And I say this obviously referring to tough moments, right? This too shall pass, right? Every storm has an expiration date. Every storm runs out of rain. This too shall pass will be the first one. Learn the art of patience. Right? Be patient in the midst of good times and bad times. Learn the art of patience. Patience will reveal certain things to you about situations, circumstances, and yourself that you didn't know exist. And always be willing to be empathetic. Right? For most of us, right, when things happen, we have sympathy for people. Right? Like, oh man, that's really unfortunate. What happened to that person? We have sympathy. I think the power of empathy is when somebody goes through something or somebody is dealing with something, empathy says, Hey Louis, I'm with you, bro. You got it. I'm gonna walk with you, man. Call me if you need me. That's empathy. Sympathy is, Man, you see what Lou is going through? It's tough. I hope he gets through it. Empathy is, hey bro, I'll be willing to walk through fire with you if you need it.

Yeah.

Right? Be empathetic.

Anki, I'm so grateful we got to connect right now. I hope we do a lot more stuff in the future. I hope so. And hang in the future, man. I want to acknowledge you for your courage. It takes a lot of courage to overcome what you've come from, the pain, the trauma, the identity loss. to transition it into something for good. I think a lot of people hold on to their pain so much, and it becomes their identity moving forward. You used it, you let go of an old identity, and you're using a new identity for good, as opposed to holding on to the pain. So I really acknowledge you for expressing your talents and your gifts with the world in the way that was scary to do. You didn't think you were gonna speak. You had to overcome that fear to even get this skill out there. So I acknowledge you for all the things you've gone through and most of all for being a great father, man. I think that's the most beautiful part is hearing your story as a father, which I'm sure you make mistakes and ton of them. But stepping up for your kids and being a great husband is what makes an impact on communities. Thank you, man. So if you're showing up in that way, man, I acknowledge you for that. Appreciate you.

Can I say something to you, man?

Sure, brother.

I think as men and as people, we don't say this enough to each other, but I'm proud of you, bro.

Thanks, man.

Proud of you.

Appreciate you, man.

Absolutely. From one brother to another, man.

Every day, one step at a time.

That's it, bro. That's it.

One step at a time, man. Thank you, brother. Final question, what's your definition of greatness?

My definition of greatness is I heard Kobe say, something great and I know you asked mine, but I gotta say this, he said every single day I was pursuing greatness even though I knew I would probably never catch it. Just the fact that I was willing to pursue it, I would defeat most of my opponents because they would never pursue something that didn't have any guarantees attached to it. So when I think greatness, I think about having the courage to pursue it. Because most people won't even pursue greatness. because they feel as if it's something that's so far-fetched that they'll never attain it.

Yeah.

I feel true greatness is having the courage to just involve yourself in the pursuit, the process of trying to be your greatest self. Right. Self-mastery is the constant pursuit. So being willing to show up every single day and constantly pursue greatness of trying to be our best selves. Yes, sir.

Thank you, Johnson. My man. Appreciate your brother.

My brother.

Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and 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 show with all the important links. And also make sure to share this with a friend and subscribe over on Apple Podcasts as well. I really love hearing feedback from you guys, so share a review over on Apple and let me know what part of this episode resonated with you the most. And if no one's told you lately, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great. Hey, everybody. Ted Danson here to tell you about my podcast with my longtime friend and sometimes co-host Woody Harrelson. It's called Where Everybody Knows yous Name, and we're back for another season. I'm so excited to be joined this season by friends like John Malaney, David Spade, Sarah Silverman, Ed Helms, and many more. You don't want to miss it. Listen to where everybody knows your name with me, Ted Danson, and Woody Harrelson sometimes, wherever you get your podcasts.

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