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

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Vulnerability is defined as uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure. Can you name one act of courage that you've ever been involved in or that you've ever even witnessed? that did not involve uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. And it's a loaded question because I know the answer is no. Because I've asked it thousands and thousands. I've stood in front of Navy SEALs and Special Forces military personnel and said, Give me an example. I want you to try hard to give me an example of courage that didn't require vulnerability. And in 10 years, I've never had a single person be able to come up. I've even had two guys come up to me who were in the military that said, We're going to think about it and get with you. oh my God, I said, do it. I would love it. Give me an example of courage, even on the field, that doesn't involve vulnerability. Like if you think you're being brave and it doesn't involve risk or uncertainty, you're not being that brave. If you know how it's going to turn out, it's not courage. And so in that moment, people go, But I wanna be brave and I don't wanna be vulnerable. And I'm like, therein lies the great.

Dilemma of our time.

Right, right.

Yeah.

No one wants to be uncomfortable. No one wants to be vulnerable and everyone wants to be brave. And it just doesn't work like that. Right.

And anytime we try something new, we've gotta be uncomfortable. It's vulnerable.

Yeah, it's vulnerable. I mean, when I ask people, what is vulnerability? People would say, initiating sex with my wife. Sending my child out the door who thinks he's going to make the first chair in orchestra and knowing he's probably not going to make the orchestra at all. Getting fired, starting my own business, saying I love you first in a relationship, trying to get pregnant after my first miscarriage. I mean, like, vulnerability is, it's uncertainty, it's not knowing, but doing it anyway because it's the brave thing to do. And so the problem is, I think, that the greatest shame trigger for men is do not be perceived as weak. And in our culture, we believe that vulnerability is weakness. So you don't have to skip too many steps before you go, hey, it's shaming to be vulnerable. And so men do two things in the face of shame, pissed off or shut down.

Put on a mask.

Put on a mask. And so what we're learning and what people are starting to see very quickly is you cannot be a courageous leader if you're not vulnerable. If you're not willing to have hard, uncomfortable conversations, give hard feedback, receive hard feedback. Like discomfort is the great enemy of courage.

And I try to come from a place of like super authentic and loving of all humanity all the time. And I was raised by, you know, I had two great parents, but my mom and two older sisters were really the ones who came back to me after they would go on a date with a guy. They'd be like, Louis, never do this on a date. You always treat women this way. So I've always tried my best. You know, I'm imperfect in so many ways and constantly make mistakes with people.

Yeah, me too.

But most of my team, I was telling you before, most of my team is women. I think 80% of my team is women.

And.

They get paid more than the men on my team, not because they're women, but because they produce better results. And my business is based on results. I've got people of different ethnicities, I've got people of different sexual orientations.

I think we need to come in with humility and curiosity and say, this is what I think and I wanna learn and if I make mistakes, let me know and I'll try to make them better. And I think we need to take responsibility. And I think it's easier sometimes for me in my life to just keep asking questions, just keep reading, just keep talking about it. And when I am so uncomfortable that I don't want to do it anymore just to keep doing it.

As a man, and I remember being in the fetal position my freshman year of college for days, sobbing in my dorm room, just curled up on a ball because a relationship ended and I was so sad to be alone and I didn't have this person in my life anymore. And I would take it out on the football field. I was like, I don't wanna feel this type of emotional pain, so how can I inflict as much physical pain on myself and other people to get it out? And it's hard to switch that off and just be like this loving, vulnerable man after you're on a football field inflicting pain. on other people because you're supposed to.

No, and I think whether we play football or not, we're much better at causing pain than we are feeling pain.

You don't wanna feel it.

No, you don't. And so we cause it and we hurt other people.

Yeah, we do.

And so, and if you look at leadership, whether you're in an organization, leading a country, leading a family as a parent, one of the cheapest, easiest ways to lead is to give people someone to hate and blame for your own, your misery. Mm-. And so we have to really watch that in our country right now. So if we, all you have to do when people are in uncertainty and fear is give them someone to blame.

And.

Give them a reason to blame them and then step back and watch everything just fall apart. And so I think that's happening right now in our country. And so, we have to push away the rhetoric. We have to own our pain. And let me tell you, it's not like you tell that story about the football field, and it's so prophetic because every crisis we're up against right now, almost without exception, is about our inability, our unwillingness to deal with pain. If you look at the opioid addiction right now across, somewhere Beginning with physicians, sent the message, there's no reason for you to hurt at all.

Here's a pain reliever.

Here's a pain reliever, you know, and things are not going well in your life. Well, here's a way to discharge hate and pain that'll make you feel better.

Like, like, by drinking or by sex.

Or drink, or sex, or whatever. Medicated, addicted, in debt, and obese Americans in history. Like our tolerance for discomfort is zero.

Soft.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So here's the irony.

Soft.

So our tolerance in football, don't be soft.

Don't be soft. So it's actually our inability to be vulnerable.

Yeah.

That makes us weak.

Yeah, I agree. One of the things I talk about and try to express to as many people as possible is to actually put yourself through pain and discomfort every single day. I try to do this physically through working out to try to push myself farther than I want to where I'm like emotionally want to cry. Yeah. Because I just know by conditioning myself to feel pain every single day that when a lot of stuff comes my way, I'm capable of taking it on and processing the emotions as opposed to being like, I just need a drink. I need this. I need that. I've never been drunk in my life so I don't even know what that feels like. But it's hard, especially as for myself, I'll speak for myself as a man, it's hard growing up learning how to deal with those type of emotions. It's really challenging. There's no class in school that says, okay, when you're feeling this way, Louis, here's how you're supposed to act. It's vulnerability. Yeah, here's how you're supposed to act. Here's the step-by-step process.

Like there's no process that we're taught unless it's our parents or we seek it out. And it's not modeled because I think parents fear kind of soft boys turning into soft men. Who, you know, I remember interviewing this guy who was in his 70s and I said, what is shame to you? And he's like, shame is being the kid you can shove up against the lockers. Yeah.

Yeah. Shame is being the kid that you shove up.

Yeah, being the kid that you can shove up against the lockers. Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, and it's like, But really, we've gotta shift it and we've gotta shift it. I think it starts parenting, school, athletics is huge.

Huge.

I mean, it's a really, I mean, let me do this. Okay, let's do this sports thing.

Let's do it.

Okay, ready? Okay. Two football teams. You're gonna place a bet.

Okay.

Both of them have hurt quarterbacks. Both of them are playing, well, both of them have hurt quarterbacks. This team over here recognizes its vulnerability and is going to put in a second stream quarterback. This team ignores its vulnerability and pretends like it doesn't exist. Who are you betting on?

Hmm. Depends on the injury.

Oh, Jesus. The quarterback.

Hey, because I played hurt my whole life, you know, so it depends.

I would say that most of us would say you are more, you are less likely to win if you do not acknowledge your vulnerabilities as. So even if you play your quarterback, you gotta make sure your line is ready.

Exactly. And you gotta switch the plays up.

Right, and his arms hurt, you're gonna pass it off.

You're gonna pass it off, you're gonna do less things.

Yeah, exactly.

So give him more time in the hole, whatever you're gonna do.

The team that acknowledges their vulnerabilities. Is gonna be more successful. Is adaptable to change. Is gonna be more successful. Right, yes. Right, so why do we think as men to pretend like you're not vulnerable? makes you the most vulnerable, makes you the most susceptible. I mean, we just have data, I mean, just like I could fill this whole room with data about you don't get to opt out. Let me ask you this. Do you know a guy in the world, you know a lot of guys, right? Who can say, I've existed at this point in my life without being uncertain, at risk, or emotionally exposed?

No.

Right, you can't not do vulnerability, but you can pretend like you don't. Then you're not making choices over the behaviors you engage in when you're vulnerable. Then you don't know when you're vulnerable, and then you're acting nutty.

And I think you pay major prices when you aren't aware or when you're not acting like you're aware. You just act like everything's fine, or you don't need help, you don't need support. you don't need to address the situation or grieve or whatever it is.

No.

That's when you get hurt the most.

It's when you get hurt the most.

When you suffer the most. And I think that's when the most anger, frustration, range, rage, and I guess, diversion happens.

It all comes back to identity and belonging.

Belonging, yeah.

But underneath identity and belonging, there's something that we don't talk about and it comes down to power. It comes down to power. I mean, I think what we're witnessing is power over's last stand.

And that's what I love, you write about how I think most men who come from this place feel like power is only one person or one group can have the power as opposed to we can spread the power throughout the world.

Like it's a pepperoni pizza. Like if I give Lewis a little power, I'm gonna have less. So make sure I'm comfortable giving it to you when it's not.

Don't give any slices away.

Don't give slices away. Hold all the, and so what we see around the world right now, not just with this administration, but globally is we see the concept of power over making a last stand. And it is not going to work. What is going to work moving forward with the completely, devastatingly difficult problems we have at hand is power with and power to. Power with each other, collective power. The things that are killing us right now, we're not going to solve. by ourselves as a nation. They're global issues. We need global solutions. We need everyone at the table for them. But that is a really, I mean, we are at a huge turning point in history that should not be minimized or misunderstood. I mean, for the first time ever, the problems that challenge us the most are problems that will not be solved with national solutions. They are global problems that require global solutions and collaboration. And for a lot of people, that's really scary.

Hard.

Hard, hard. What about us? What about me? You know, and last stands, you know about last stands. Last stands are violent. Last stands are fueled by desperation. Vulnerability is not weakness. It's about the willingness to show up and be seen when you can't control the outcome. And it is actually our greatest measure of courage.

So.

Show up in an authentic way and let us see your hearts because we know how lonely you actually are.

Wow.

Yeah, men are lonely. I mean, it's really, men are lonely, it's really hard. But I would not, I think that's, I don't think I would say anything differently to women as either, you know, because I think there is certainly, you know, for women, the greatest shame trigger.

Is.

Do it all, do it perfectly, and never let them see you sweat, look perfect, work perfect, in all areas. In all areas. And force upon them. Yeah, be smoking hot and brilliant and this, but don't ever look like you're putting any effort toward it. And so easy, right? Right, it is. I don't understand why my sisters have not nailed that. But I think, so it's hard for women to be vulnerable because it's less than perfect. You know?

So I don't- you- mean women aren't wearing masks?

Yeah.

Yeah, and it's terrible because then the two collide. And you see in a lot of partnerships, I mean, I've seen it so much in my research, this contract we have where I'll stay smoking hot and awesome and, you know, money and provider shame is such a real thing for men. And, you know, you do this and this is our contract and we're both in straight jackets till we die. How do we remove those jabs? We just start getting real with each other. We just start being really honest. And we see each other. You know, we really see each other.

Yeah. Wow. I've got a few minutes left. So I'm gonna be mindful of these questions.

I know. Because I could ask you, let's go now. Cut it.

I could ask you, I could talk to you for hours. Is there anything you feel ashamed of still?

Oh, I have moments for sure. Like, I will have moments of... But now I know, I mean, it's, we can't ever get rid of shame. What we can do is develop resilience to shame. So when it happens and it washes over, that warm wash that makes you feel small and not enough, when that washes over me, rather than yelling at my kids or just decimating myself with hateful language, you know, and like, you're stupid or you're not, you know, now when it washes over me, I'm like, okay, I'm in shame. Don't talk, text, or type what happened. So there are still, I mean, I still have triggers around it. I still have triggers around it. And I still think it's probably the same motherhood trying to, you know, do everything and balance everything and be where I'm supposed to be. And that's still hard sometimes.

Yeah. You know, what's the process that someone should take on when they feel shame, anger, rage?

Well, shame is shame I can really help you with is, First and foremost, talk to someone, talk to yourself like you talk to someone you love. So if you really, if you, if something happens and you're overwhelmed with shame, the first thing you need to do is get back on your emotional feet. Don't talk, text, or type to anyone because the first, one of the things.

We want to do is push that.

Out on other people. I'm good at that.

Yeah.

I'm guilty of that.

Yeah.

No, yeah. So just get into a dark, quiet place and then talk to yourself like you talk to someone you love. Just be like, dude, it's okay. like you screwed this up, what you said was super hurtful, you're gonna have to circle back and clean that stuff up, but give yourself a break here, just like I would talk to Ellen or Charlie if they made a mistake, then reach out and talk to someone about what you're feeling. Shame cannot survive being spoken. So if I call you and I'm like, oh my God, Louis, I'm in a shame storm, you're not gonna believe what happened, and you listen to me and you respond empathetically, with something like, oh my God, I've been there, or oh God, I get it, I'm sorry, that sucks. Shame can't hold on because shame can't survive empathy.

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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. 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 person? 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. We just wanted our own beds, right? And so when it happened, I remember seeing certain things happen that it caught my attention, 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 if you're open to it. 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 has 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. 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.

Absolutely.

That's it. Act like a child, have a child. 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 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 leg, 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 have been in the movie 300. Traps up to his ears, until my yoked up, Lewis, 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 3:00 PM. He said, why 3:00 PM? 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 was 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. And so with adversity and opposition with my arm, I got to paralyze right on my 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 had 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. 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 say part of how I grew up. When 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 had me on their team, let them be like, man, that cat used to 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, 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, right? It shaped my perspective. It made me extremely grateful. I remember Christmas Eve, we got our first pair of Nikes and somebody broke in our house and me and my cousin was going back and forth in the room like, man, 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 when we walked in that room and they were gone.

Oh man.

And you saw a cat had came through that window. Hurt, right? First pair of Nikes, hurt, right? And I'll never forget, my mother called my coach. A 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 was 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, Will 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? Was it Connecting with your boys in a certain way or being perceived as someone who got injured, was it, what was the fear or insecurity you had to overcome?

Man, I would say it's layered, so I 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 you.

Yeah, yeah.

But at the time you were with her, or on and off with him?

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. 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 wanna go back to family.

Yeah, to have to grow up the way I grew up, my kids, or go back to that environment. And I loved every element of it, right? I love the encounters with the people. I love the impact that it gives you. I was just running from my past. And I'll never forget, I was in a small group and a gentleman was walking around in a circle and he was like, what's something that you 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 are you, Ben?

How old are 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 started negotiating with her.

I'm negotiating with her.

It's your birthday week before or week after.

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 can send you and Grandma to the spa. I can come back right after that. We can work, I got it all figured out. Oh, I got it all figured out. And she could see how excited I was. So she was like, oh, yeah, yeah, go, sure, go. And my wife, man, my wife been at it since fifth grade. So she knows me. You go. So I go, it works out, do the gig, I send them to the spa, fly back the same day, pick her up, everything goes great on the birthday. Two days later, I 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. 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 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, every next level of our lives demand a new version of us, right? Taking that toolkit, reconstructing it, growing to another level. So I didn't do damage, but having the right intentions while doing damage, the right intention. 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.

So how do you negotiate? What if you got a $100,000 gig on her birthday?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I used to say, Nike, man, I can't come in the studio.

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? and they're 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 had 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 deconstruct the two. 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, I interconnected 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 it's something wrong with me. And I think what happens when we go through and we create a level of empathy, we show them that, nah, man, you're human. Like we all go through things. Nobody is perfect. I told a guy that had a brachial plexus injury, he's like, Man, I see how you got through it. It hasn't been that easy for me. I was like, no, bro, it took work. It took years. 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.

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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 had played ball, if God would have blessed me to go to the.

NFL, play 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. Like 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 to play ball, and I think about that often, if I had to play 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. 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, like I saw this story, it helped me hang in there with my family. Like I take that to heart. When a kid comes up and is like, man, I watched that before the games. I'm like, man, that's amazing, right? That can never get to the point in my life to where I'm 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. I thank. 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.

How would you say that your childhood developed for you to get to a place to be in that environment?

That's a really profound question. You know, and it takes me back to my healing journey. And one of the parts of that healing journey started with reading this quote from Socrates, the unexamined life isn't worth living. So I was sitting in a prison cell in solitary confinement, being told that I would never get out of prison, let alone out of solitary confinement. And the thing about it is I almost started to believe that because my neighbor across from me, this guy named Tony, a super fascinating guy, one of the most charismatic, charming guy. He can emulate voices like you wouldn't even believe. He had been a solitary for like 20 years.

20 years. 20 years. So in solitary confinement for people that don't know, how much time do you get to spend with others? How much time do you get out of your cell? How much, you know, activity time? What is that? What is the day to day?

23 hour lockdown.

Come on.

Five days out of the week.

Oh.

And 24-hour lockdown, the other two days of the week. So for five days out of the week, you can go out to basically what's essentially dog.

The yard.

Yeah. So they put handcuffs on you, put a leash on the handcuffs, walk you out to this cage, and you're allowed to stay out there for, like, you.

Know, an hour, hour or so.

And oftentimes, me personally, I would choose not to go out for a variety of reasons. Sometimes they were like, feces wars, like guys just slinging feces. And, you know, I didn't want to be in a line of fire of that. And then other times it was just like, it was in Michigan, so it could be extremely cold and you have the bare minimum on. But it was in that environment that I really began to examine, like, how did I end up here?

And what got you into solitary? Because originally you're not in solitary confinement.

Yeah.

So I got into a conflict with an officer, and that actually ended up being two additional years in prison.

Prison. Oh man.

Turned out to be four and a half years straight in solitary on that particular stint.

Because what was your original sentence for?

So my original sentence was second degree murder.

For how long was it supposed to be?

17 to 40 years.

Geez.

And so I ended up serving a total of 19 years.

Because you had two years with this.

Yeah, I had two years added. And so that extended my time, but during this time in solitary, you know, it was a serious assault on the officer who was to charge. We got into a fight, and because I was incarcerated, I got charged with, you know, a crime, a new crime. And, you know, sitting in that environment, I was reading, you know, that line, the unexamined life isn't worth living. And so what happened is I asked myself this question, how did you go from an honor roll scholarship student with dreams of being a doctor to this being your life. And so I began a journal and I began to unpack all the things that had transpired in my childhood that led me to that moment. And as I was journaling, I was like, how is a kid who has experienced this level of trauma, even a life, let alone, you know, capable of just being like, hey, you know, what happened to my life and why am I here? And so that journaling just peeled back the layers and it was raw and it was ugly and then it became beautiful and it became powerful because what I was able to do was to go back and reassign responsibility to the people who had caused me harm, who had traumatized me. You know, early in my childhood, that trauma started within my household. with my mom, which was very difficult to write, growing up. And, you know, the kind of community that I grew up in, it was unheard of to say that this is abuse and that this is traumatizing me. So I, early on, I began to accept that this was just the way it was. And so when I began to journal and unpack that, and think about, you know, like what that meant. I was able to say, you know, I wasn't responsible for those hits. I weren't responsible for those mean words. And as I got deeper into that conversation, I began to understand how that household trauma led me to running away when I was about 14 years old. And when I ran away, I was so naive. You know, I thought that one of my friends' parents would see this smart, you know, handsome kid and just take me in and wrap me in the love that I believe all children deserve. You know, it's something I'm so adamant about in my work. I think children deserve, like, love and care and kindness and, you know, all the things, you know, wrapped in structure, you know, they need discipline.

Sure, sure.

And what ended up happening is for, like, two weeks, I just was, like, roaming the neighborhood. I was sleeping friends' garages. I would sleep in basements, you know, I was hustling food at the store. I would, you know, Hey, can I take your bags to your, you know, car? And they would give me 50 cent and I would like, you know, go eat, you know, potato chips and cookies. And I was unbathe and, you know, I began to get ridiculed by, you know, the older guys like, Hey, you know, you kind of dusty and like, go take a shower and get some sneakers and all the things. And like a lot of kids who grow up in those experiences, I was vulnerable. We don't talk about it a lot culturally, 'cause, you know, if you come from the streets, you have to be like, hard and you gotta wear that mask. But when you really get down to it, like I was a kid.

14.

14, and most of us are kids. We get looped into this very adult world, and it's a seduction. And I, over the years, I began to actually reframe the language for exactly what it was right? So what was it? It was the seduction of a kid into a culture, an adult culture. And what that looked like was, were.

You still going to school or were you more just?

So I was kind of going to school whenever I can shower and bathe and, you know, so I would go up to the school. And what happened is there was an older guy in the neighborhood and he was like, hey, you know, I see, you know, what's going on. Like, you know, come rap with me. Let's go get something to eat. and he took me to Burger King. And then he was like, you know.

Acting like he's gonna take care of.

You a little bit. Yeah, he's like, yo, you need some sneakers, you need some clothes. If you come, you know, work this spot. This is the beginning of crack cocaine.

The crack cocaine era.

This is 19, this is like '86. Yeah, so this is when crack is just penetrating the Midwest.

And this is Detroit, right?

This is Detroit. Yeah, so we don't even know. This is a new drug in the community. We don't even know how devastating it's gonna be. And at a kid, you can't even begin to imagine what that is. And so he takes me in, he's like, Let's go get sneakers and let's go get food and all the things. And then I'm in this crack house on the east side of Detroit. I'm in here. And I remember the first time where I was like, this is scary. is he brings me this sawed off shotgun. And he's like, if anybody tries to break in, just shoot through the door. You're 14, 15 years old.

14 years old.

I've never- that's terrifying. I've never even shot a low caliber gun. Yeah, let it on a shotgun. That's terrifying. It's terrifying, but I can't say that I'm terrified because that's not the culture. You gotta act tough. Yeah, and so it's like, you know, he breaks down the amount that I'm gonna sell and what I owe. and then what I'll make at the end of the week. And so the end of the week comes around and it's 350, 400, mostly in singles and five dollar bills. It's this big water cast. And the first thing I do is go to the grocery store and I just buy all the cereal. It's like everything, Captain Crunch, the- yeah. Fruity Pebbles. and then I buy like chocolate milk and strawberry milk. The reality is I'm a kid. I'm gorging this cereal now, but that was my entry into that culture. And within the first six months is when it got real. My childhood friend was murdered. I was robbed at gunpoint. And then I became addicted to crack cocaine at 14 years old. I was introduced to that again by another adult who's like, Hey, this is cool. This is what we do. It's fine. We make a lot of money, you know? And so I had to navigate addiction in this adult culture as a 14 year old kid. And then after that, I ended up messing up the money because of the addiction. And they beat me near to death.

Oh, man.

You know? And I remember being 14 years old. laying on the bathroom floor in a pool of my blood and asking this question, what kind of world do we live in where this happens to kids? And so that was my intro into that culture. And then over the years, you know, I began to become hardened. I began to put up the mask. And then when I was 17 years old, I got shot and. At that point, I was the third of my mother's sons to be shot.

Come on.

My oldest brother had been shot in the neck. My second oldest brother had been shot at that point. When I got shot, he got shot in the arm, and then he got shot again. He's currently paralyzed. He's been paralyzed since, I wanna say 1998. So high levels of gun trauma, high levels of, you know, gun violence within the culture, you know, I can't even, tell you how many of my friends have actually been shot or murdered. And so at 17, you sit in the hospital bed, I'm processing this very traumatic event, and there's nobody there to help me. There's nobody there to say, hey, no.

Support, no family support, friends.

Yeah, I think my dad and my mom came, but I think they didn't even know what to do at that point. It's like I'm a 30-year-old child is laying in the hospital bed with bullet wounds. And I can't even tell you how many kids in the neighborhood who they saw grow up. You know, this was, I mean, and this is the height of that era, right? So, you know, 86 to 90, you know, this is like a very volatile time in Detroit, you know, and this is when crack cocaine is at its height, the war on drugs is happening. And, you know, it wasn't until I began to journal that I realized there should have been an intervention. And had I been from a different community with different resources, that somebody would have said, hey, you're gonna need help. You're gonna need a psychologist. You're gonna need a therapist. You're gonna need somebody to talk to and help you unpack this traumatic event.

Absolutely.

And that just didn't happen. And so what happened was I went back to my neighborhood with this narrative in my mind that if I get into a conflict, I'm shooting first and I begin to carry a gun every day. I didn't feel safe. And what you can't say, you know, when you grow up the way that I grew up, you can't say that, you know, that actually hurt when I got shot.

No, you're saying, yeah, it was like.

Whatever, you know, I'll get back, you know, I'll get the guy next.

You're fine in a couple weeks.

Yeah. And so, that's the mindset at 17 years old that I'm just like, yo, I'm hard, I'm standing on this corner. What I can say to my friends is every time a car pulls up, that I have anxiety because there was no language for anxiety.

Nah.

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

You didn't.

And I turned to walk away. And what I thought was happening was that the person I was arguing with was attempting to get out of the car. And I just turned and fired four shots to tragically end his life. And, you know, it's a moment that I played over for years of like, why didn't I just take that second step? you know, and keep walking.

Keep walking.

And it wasn't until I was journaling that I realized that the grip of the trauma of being shot would not allow me to make a different decision.

'Cause you weren't healed. You can't make a conscious decision from a hurt place. You have to make that from a healed place. Or a healing journey. You know, you gotta be on that journey. interesting. What happened after that incident?

So I was subsequently arrested. I was charged with open murder, and I was eventually sentenced to 17 to 40 years for second degree murder. And, you know, going through the legal process, I was like, psychologically, I was already traumatized. Like, I was just, like, so numb. and I remember at my sentence, you know, my lawyer telling me, you know, here's what you say to the family. And it was the most superficial apology ever.

On what he wanted you to say.

Yeah.

And, you know, I was still a kid, and so I trusted his judgment, and I just kind of went with this kind of rope. apology. And that was devastating. Really? You know, as I began to navigate my prison sentence... For you, it was.

Devastating or for them?

I'm sure it was devastating for them, but it was devastating for me in the sense that I knew that I didn't communicate what I actually felt.

What did you actually feel?

That I had made a horrible decision that had caused them incredible pain and, like, I was deeply sorry and just, like, it was something that I wish I could have took back.

And as opposed to, like, the scripted kind of. Yeah. Clinical apology or. Yeah. Gotcha.

You know, and so for years, I, you know, in prison, I just kind of beat up on myself, and I just internalized even more of that pain, you know? And, you know, my first five years in prison was just like, dark and anger-filled and just, I got into tons of trouble and lots of fights or lots of fights and, you know, disobeying the rules. And it's very recalcitrant. Like, I'm like, I'm not listening to no rules. And it was in that environment where in that dark space where one of what I call my three miracles, transpired. And that first miracle was meeting some of the most incredible mentors in the world. And these were- In prison. In prison.

Yeah.

And these weren't like, you know, people who were coming to visit us to help salvage our souls were people who were just like, you know, you know, we want to come and help you fix your life. These were guys serving life sentences. Guys who, if you really think about what a life sentence is, they had nothing to gain.

They were- By helping you.

Yeah, by helping me. But these guys were brilliant. These guys challenged me to read, to think, they challenged my thinking. After I read, we debated, they tried to give me guidance. And even though I didn't listen to them in a moment, that wisdom later on became one of the most valuable to valuable gifts I've ever received. And yeah, so that's what it was like, the first part of the first.

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And so what, and then five years in, you got into the fight with the guard, which sent you into seven years solitary.

No, that came about three years later. The second miracle actually showed up about that fifth year. And it came in the form of a letter from this woman named Nancy. And when I first got the letter, I'm just like, okay, who is this random person writing me?

'Cause you didn't know who she was.

Yeah, I thought it was, you know, just a pen pal 'cause that's what happens in prisons. Like, people hear about your case and you just start getting these letters from random strangers who are like, Hey, you know, I just wanna be friends, etc. But it turns out Nancy was the woman who had raised David, whose life I was responsible for taking.

Oh man.

And so Nancy writes me this letter.

She wasn't the mother.

She wasn't the mother, she was the godmother.

Oh man.

She writes me this letter.

This is five, seven years in.

It's about five or so years in. And I remember opening the letter and her beginning to tell me who David who was, you know, the father, the husband, the man, the friend. And I can tell you, I wanted to borrow that letter up. Oh, I was like, you know, emotionally, it was just like a tidal wave of, like, guilt and responsibility and all the things that I hadn't unpacked yet. And something was like, you have to read the letter all the way through. You have to finish this thing. And I continue to read the letter. And what Nessie said to me was like, despite the harm and devastation you've caused my family, I love you.

Holy cow.

And I forgive you because that's what God would want me to do.

Oh my goodness. And how did that make you feel reading that?

I was like, I went through kind of like a process of different feelings. First, I just felt horrible because I'm like, this woman in a moment of her own hurt and anguish is giving me something that I didn't even know if I was capable of receiving, which was love and forgiveness. And I wasn't emotionally mature enough at that time to even understand like the power of like, you know, love that's like spiritual love, you know, this deep, deep spiritual love, this principle perspective of like somebody's beliefs really aligning with what they actually do. I hadn't forgiven myself. So forgiveness was like, whoa, like what is this? You know, what am I supposed to do with this, you know? But I wrote her back, you know, and I wrote her back and her and I embarked on this correspondence journey. And, you know, Nancy was essential to my personal healing in this way. What she said to me was that I want to know What happened to that 19-year-old kid that pulled the trigger that night?

What caused you to get to that space?

What caused me to get to that space.

Wow.

And so her and I began this journey of just unpacking a lot of the things. But even with that, it wasn't the kind of moment of just like where everything comes together, right? you know, in storytelling, people often want just that one moment of like, it's your come to Jesus moment.

Healing is a journey.

Healing is a journey.

It may not be like, oh, I'm healed in this moment. There might be little moments that bring you closer to awareness.

Absolutely.

And then eventually over time, it starts to mend and heal. And I remember a moment that I had not to go off track. I remember a moment I had where nine years ago, I mentioned I was, you know, when I was 30, I opened up about sexual, the sexual abuse for the first time. I held onto it for 25 years. So I didn't even start to heal until 25 years later. And if I look back and I'm like, there's reason why I reacted in this way, in this situation, in this situation, not saying it's okay or that I'm off the hook, but without having the tools to heal, even the littlest of traumas, we could turn situations into horrible situations.

Absolutely.

We can choose bad things.

Absolutely.

And I remember I started my healing journey at 30, but I still had other things in my life that I hadn't started to heal. Other traumas, right? From parents to previous relationships to whatever shame and guilt that I was holding on to. And it wasn't until about a year and a half ago in therapy, diving in very deep where, like, I felt the pain in my chest that I had for so long, kind of disintegrate. It was actually a moment, but I was like, this is almost 10 years of a healing journey. Then there was a moment that I felt like it connected my mind to my heart and my body, where my nervous system finally fully relaxed from that trauma. Now, I'm sure I'm still gonna have things that come up and you go back and you have to learn and heal and you go back a couple steps and you learn and heal. journey, but there wasn't like this aha moment. The moment I talked about it the first time, it took me nine years. And then I'm still gonna need to learn how to heal, you know? Yeah. But so that happened for you with the letter, the correspondence, where it was like, it was a moment of awareness, but it wasn't like, oh, I'm this loving, healed, no shame human being anymore.

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

And so- and a healthy, conscious human who's got, you know, on a healing journey or was just processing their pain, you know, processing trauma when it happens and learns how to do that, which they don't teach us these things growing up in school. Parents don't teach us. You know, I grew up in Ohio was never, you know, share with me how you feel. You know, it was just tough enough. And in the sports field, specifically, you fall down, you get hurt. It's just put the dirt on it and go back.

Right.

You're made fun of if you showed emotion. Absolutely.

Right.

In the sports field.

Right.

Yeah. And so you just wanted to, I just wanted to fit in. You just wanted to fit in. And you couldn't. you couldn't show it in a tender emotional side. And I think it's, you know, it's one of the reasons why I wanted to create this show 10 years ago during my healing journey was like, what are these tools that can really help transform human beings inside so we can have a healthier outside? We see all these, you know, all the pain in the world, right? School shooting that just happened the other day. 19 kids, right? And this is what, I don't know, 20 or 30 shootings this year so far?

Mass, yeah.

It's whenever there's these mass shootings or this wars, it seems like a lot of times it's caused by men who are hurt.

Absolutely.

Who are in pain.

Absolutely.

Who haven't learned how to heal trauma. And there's no justification, there's no, you know, lack of responsibility by any of these acts. but I think you can see where that pain is coming from and how, like, man, this, this person had to go through a lot of years of trauma that was unresolved to get to this breaking point.

Absolutely.

And I think, and I'm so glad that you're doing the work you're doing, because for me, I know that if I didn't have some environment that was healthy and some friends that were good and some, you know, parental figures that were good, I could have gone down the same path. You know, my brother went to jail and told you about this. And it's like I could have seen myself going down that with one decision, one action that just like my pain gripped a hold of me and I made a dumb decision and now I'm in jail for 5, 10, 20 years. So it could be so quick how one action can hurt a lot of people and yourself forever.

Yeah.

And I think the most important thing is teaching men how to heal their emotional wounds, their traumatic wounds today, because a lot of the pain in domestic violence and Community violence and schools and just the world, the wars that people are having is from men who are hurt and haven't healed. And so I'm so glad that you're doing this work and you're talking about this because when you're a young boy growing up as a young teen, I'll speak for myself. One of the main drivers is to try to get a girl to like you. It's like in our DNA or something, right? It's like, how can I get a girl to like me? To hold my hand, to kiss me, to whatever it is when you're like 10, 12, 14. You just want to be accepted by a girl that you like.

Absolutely.

So we're driven to do things to get the attention from a girl, essentially. whether that's right or wrong, it's just kind of like what it is. What drives us.

Yes, the driver. Yeah.

And this may sound not politically correct, but the challenge is, I don't think women understand how to allow men to be emotionally vulnerable, especially when they're growing up. It's not accepted when you're made fun of, when you're picked on by other boys, when you're being sensitive, or maybe a girl who's saying, hey, what are you crying for? That's not sexy to me, that's not a turn on. Then boys start to toughen up and say, okay, I can't show my emotions because my buddies are gonna make fun of me. I'm not gonna get the girl. And she's not gonna think I'm a real man. And so we kind of just put these masks on.

Absolutely.

Tell me if I'm wrong here.

No, I think you're right. And I think what it is is that the culture, even for you know, young girls who eventually grow into being women who want men to be mostly vulnerable, they're as much of victims of it as we are because they're told that, you know, the toughness, the mass, the indifference, you know, the bad boy, you know, imagery is what's a, you know, it's a turn on. It's a turn on, right? And then as they go through their maturation process, they realize that, you know, there's something else that's needed and that vulnerability. And then I think from a as men, what we fail to do is to say, hey, you know, I actually love love. Yes. You know, I actually appreciate intimacy, you know?

Yes, man.

That, you know, as beautiful and as amazing as you are, what really is beautiful is that I can trust the conversation we're having is authentic, and I can be my true self. And I can say, you know, today this actually hurts. You know, one of the things I wrote about in a new book, I said, you know, as a boy, when I couldn't cry tears, I cried bullets. Oh, like that's our community right now, right? These mass shootings are unexpressed sadness. They're unexpressed frustration, they're unexpressed insecurities. And while it doesn't excuse the behavior, if we grow to understand it, then we can actually better prevent it, first of all, because everybody can do, you know, a Monday morning triage and you know, we can all play money more than a quarterback, but prevention is what we have currently available to us. And that prevention starts with understanding. If you don't understand, if you don't create space for men to actually say, here's how I really feel. You know, let me, let's take down the idea that you think about how I feel. But here's how I really feel. And like, and we have to do it with each other as men.

Absolutely.

And what I found is that like in my men's circle, I get so excited to talk about my friends because I can say to them, you know, I love you, brother. Like, I care about you. And how does your soul feel today? You know, did you do anything that was joyful? Are you fulfilled in your life and in your purpose? And we don't have to talk about numbers and metrics and all these other things that have been defined as the way that we measure our manhood, but I can do it because I'm willing to share those things. And I didn't get there overnight. Like, this was a journey, unlike, anything imaginable. And I would say that it, the, the Tipping Point from the emotional growth started with the third miracle. I mean, my share that there was these three miracles.

Nancy was the second let, the second one.

Yeah. And so that third Miracle was getting a letter from my son while I was in solitary. So this is after the altercation with the officer. I'm about seven or eight years into my sentence.

From your son?

Yeah.

When did you have your first son?

So my first son was born six months after I was arrested. So his mom was three months pregnant.

Wow.

Oh, wow. And so, you know, probably about two years into that time in solitary, which began about my eighth year in prison. So I probably was coming up on 10 years when I get this letter.

Wow.

And my, my, Dad always would sit my son down and make sure he wrote me letters. And normally they were just, you know, these little kid letters, Hey Dad, you know, Transformers is my jam right now, you know, or, you know, here's a drawing or whatever, and I love you, Dad. And, you know, he would send me those.

Yeah. As a kid, young, two, five, seven year old. Yeah.

And I actually still have those letters, some of those letters. And so he would send me these, you know, throughout my journey, and then I get this one letter when he's about 10 years old. I'm in solitary at the time. I think I'm on about year two. And I opened the letter expecting it to just be, you know, hey, Dad, here's what's happening in my world. When I opened it, my son writes to me, Dad, my mom told me why you're in prison for murder. And he said, Dad, don't kill again. Jesus watches what what you do. That letter destroyed the facade of toughness. Like the mask that I had worn up to that point in my life, I mean, it just disintegrated. And I was like, I owe him a dad. And if I don't know if I'm getting out of prison or not, but what I do know is that I have to live my life in a way that my son understands that no matter how far down you fall in life, if you are willing to do the work, you can get up and you can overcome. And so I said to myself in that moment, I don't know how, I don't even know if I'm ever going to get out of this place, but I need to prove to myself that I am committed to transforming my life. And I'm in the Spartan cell at the time, like there is nothing there that says, Hey, here's how you can prove it. So I started with journaling because I wanted to get to the truth of like, you know, how did I end up here? Like there was a part of me that was like, I know I'm not a bad person. I know that I'm a good soul, but I've done horrible things that have hurt people. And so that was a conflict that was just like, this is a war right now, right? And so I go into battle mode. I'm like journaling and I'm writing and I mean, it's raw and it's scary and it's just like, sheesh, this is the things that I've done. These are the things that have been done to me. And while I was doing it, I realized that I hadn't completed anything other than the GED. And I was like, okay, if you're committed to transforming your life, you have to finish something.

And you have to do it for you.

And you can't do it for the warden, you can't do it for the guards, you can't do it for your parents. I told them many times, oh, I'm turning my life around. It's the last time I've been in trouble. It was all the fluff, it was the mask, it was the lies that we tell ourselves in the moment when we're hurting and we're just like, okay, we don't want the, we want that immediate hurt to stop. But it wasn't about turning life around. And so I said, here's what you do. You have to write a book in 30 days. And if you write this book in 30 days, then that will be your proof that you're ready for a change.

That's cool.

And so I didn't have a laptop though. I didn't have a typewriter.

Handwriting.

It was old school. I didn't even have a real good pen. Like so, imagine if you you pull the inside of that piano.

You had that little thing.

That little thing.

Oh my gosh, that's hard.

Yeah, and so I was like, okay.

They wanna give you a pen?

No, not in solitary. They're scared you're gonna shank the guard or something.

Oh my gosh.

And so immediately I was like, it's no way possible I'm gonna write a book in 30 days with this thing. And the first thing that popped in my mind was, here's excuse number one. Here's your victimhood. Here's your blaming everything other than being accountable. and I was like, okay, no, this is not gonna happen. We're not going back down this path, right? And so I took that pen and I rolled it up in some paper.

I had chill. I had chill getting in there. I think it was a heart.

Yeah, I'm like, yo, I mean, I had tons of experience rolling things up. So it was just like, let me be intentional, right? Like this is innovation. This is, you know, I learned that later on in my life that, oh, that's what that is, like innovation. But rolling it up in that paper made it firm enough for me to write. And I wrote for 30 days straight until I finished that book. And when I finished that book.

I.

Felt this incredible weight lifted from my shoulder. And I felt empathy for myself. And I felt compassion. And I was like, you are a smart kid. You are capable of doing good. you are worthy of doing good. Greatness is the ability to do something good over and over.

I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus Channel exclusively on Apple podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you, if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great. Hey, everybody, it's Rob Lowe here.

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