Hey everyone, this is Lewis Howes and I am so excited to invite you to the summit of Greatness 2024 happening at the iconic Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California. This is more than just an event. It's a powerful experience designed to ignite your passion, boost your growth, and connect you with a community of other inspiring achievers. Join us Friday, September 13 and Saturday, September 14 for two days packed with inspiration and transformation from some of the most incredible speakers on the planet. Don't miss out on this chance to elevate your life, unlock your potential, and be part of something truly special. Make sure to get your tickets right now and step into greatness with us at the summit of Greatness 2024. Head over to lewishows.com tickets and get your tickets today and I will see you there.

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 ten 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.

They never got back to 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, if it, 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 safe, yeah. If you know how it's going to turn out, it's not courage. And so in that moment, people go, but I want to be brave and I don't want to be vulnerable. And I'm like, therein lies the great dilemma of our time. 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 got to 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.

Yeah.

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 courageous.

And I try to come from a place of, like, super authentic and loving of all humanity all the time. 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 successful, 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 want to learn, and I want to. 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 in college for days, sobbing in my dorm room, just curled up on a ball, because I, you know, 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 want to 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 the football field, like, 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 want to 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. 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. You know, 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, you know, 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. 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 by drinking or by drinking or sex or drug, 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. What we're taught in football, don't be soft.

Don't be soft. So it's actually our inability to be vulnerable that makes us weak.

Yeah, I agree. One of the things I talk about and try to express 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 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 the end of the week. And so the end of the week comes around and it's 300, $5400, mostly in singles and five dollar bills. It's this big wildcast. And the first thing I do is go to the grocery store and I just buy all the cereal that Captain Crunch, everything. Captain Crunch, the lucky charm, fruity pebbles. And then I buy, like, chocolate milk and strawberry milk. You know, the reality is, I'm a kid, you know, I'm gorging this cereal down. But that was my entry into that culture. And within the first six months is when it got real. You know, my childhood friend was murdered.Oh.I was robbed at gunpoint. And then I became addicted to crack cocaine at 14 years old. You know, I was introduced to that again by another adult who's like, hey, this is cool. This is what we do. It's fine. We make a lot of money, you know? And so I had to navigate addiction in this adult culture as a 14 year old kidde. 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.Jeez.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 want to say, 1998. So high levels of gun trauma, high levels of gun violence within the culture. I can't even tell you how many of my friends have actually been shot or murdered. And so at 17, sitting in the hospital bed, I'm processing this very traumatic event, and there's nobody there to help me. There's nobody there to say, hey, no.Support, no family support, friends.Yeah, I think my dad and my mom came, but I think they didn't even know what to do at that point. It's like I'm a 30 year child just land in a hospital bed with bullet wounds, and I can't even tell you how many kids in a 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 high. 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, if somebody would have said, hey, you're going to need help. You're going to need a psychologist. You're going to need a therapist. You're going to need somebody to talk to and help you unpack this traumatic event.Absolutely.And that just didn't happen. 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 began to carry a gun every day. I didn't feel safe. And what you can't say, you know, when you grow up, the way that I grew up, you can't say that, you know, that actually hurt when I got shot.No, you have to say whatever, you.Know, I'll get back, you know, I'll get the guy next to me 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. There was no language for paranoia. There was no language for fear. Because you can't be a tough kid growing up in the hood and be afraid. You just got to navigate it. You just got to put the mask on. And so I wore that mask. But deeper than that was the narrative that I created that if I found myself in the conflict, I would shoot first. And 16 months later, at nearly two in the morning, I got into this conflict over a drug deal that I refused to make. And that conflict escalated. And there was this moment, you know, that I always think back to where I turned to walk away.You did.And I turned to walk away. And what I thought was happening was that the person I was arguing with was attempting to get out of the car, and I just turned and fired four shots that tragically ended his life. And, you know, it's a moment that I played over for years of, like, why didn't I just take that second step, you know, and keep walking. Keep walking. Yeah. And it wasn't until I was journaling that I realized that the grip of the trauma of being shot would not allow me to make different decision.Yeah, because you weren't healed. You can't make a conscious decision from a hurt place.Yeah.You have to make that from a healed place.Absolutely.Or a healing journey.Yeah.You know, you got to 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 and 40 years for second degree murder. And, you know, going through the legal process, I was, like, psychologically, I was already traumatized. Like, I was just, like, so numb. And I remember at my sentence, you know, my lawyer telling me, you know, here's what you say to the family. And it was the most superficial apology.Ever 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, as I began to navigate my prison sentence.For you. As devastating or for them?For.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 clinical apology or whatever. Gotcha.You know, and so for years, I, you know, in prison, I just kind of beat up on myself, and I just internalized more of that pain, you know? And, you know, my first five years in prison was just, like, dark, and anger filled. It 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. Yeah. And these weren't, like, you know, people who were coming to visit us to helped 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. You know, they were.By helping you.Yeah, by helping me. But these guys were brilliant. You know, these guys challenged me to read, to think. You know, they challenged my thinking. After I read, we debated. You know, they tried to give me guidance. And even though I didn't listen to them in a moment, you know, that wisdom later on became one of the most valuable gifts I've ever received. And. Yeah, so that's what it was like.The first part of the first five years is dark. You're getting into trouble. Some mentors are trying to help you. You're doing a little bit of the work, but you're still from a hurt place. You're still reactive. You still haven't healed the trauma or done the journaling and the healing work yet. And so what, then? Five years in, you got into the fight with the guard, which sent you into seven years solitary?No, that came about three years later. The second miracle actually showed up in about that fifth year, and it came in the form of a letter from this woman named Nancy. And when I first got the letter, I'm just like, okay, who is this random person writing me?Cause you didn't know what she was.Yeah, I thought it was, you know, just a pen pal. Cause that's what happens in prison. It's like, people hear about your case, and you just start getting these letters from random strangers who are like, hey, I just wanna be friends, et cetera. But it turns out Nancy was the woman who had raised David, whose life I was responsible for taking.Oh, Mandy.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.About five. Five, yeah, five or so years in. And I remember opening the letter and her beginning to tell me who David was. You know, the father, the husband, the man, the friend. And I can tell you, I wanted to 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 continued 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 don't kill again. Jesus watches with you do. That letter destroyed the posada 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 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 mass. 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 change.That's cool.And so I didn't have a laptop, though. I didn't have the typewriter handwriting. It was old school. I didn't even have a real good pen, like, so imagine if you pull the inside of that 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, like, shank the guard or something.Oh, my gosh.And so immediately, I was like, there'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 wrote it up in some paper, and I had you getting in there.I made it 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. 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 additive 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 of 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.

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 the end of the week. And so the end of the week comes around and it's 300, $5400, mostly in singles and five dollar bills. It's this big wildcast. And the first thing I do is go to the grocery store and I just buy all the cereal that Captain Crunch, everything. Captain Crunch, the lucky charm, fruity pebbles. And then I buy, like, chocolate milk and strawberry milk. You know, the reality is, I'm a kid, you know, I'm gorging this cereal down. But that was my entry into that culture. And within the first six months is when it got real. You know, my childhood friend was murdered.Oh.I was robbed at gunpoint. And then I became addicted to crack cocaine at 14 years old. You know, I was introduced to that again by another adult who's like, hey, this is cool. This is what we do. It's fine. We make a lot of money, you know? And so I had to navigate addiction in this adult culture as a 14 year old kidde. 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.Jeez.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 want to say, 1998. So high levels of gun trauma, high levels of gun violence within the culture. I can't even tell you how many of my friends have actually been shot or murdered. And so at 17, sitting in the hospital bed, I'm processing this very traumatic event, and there's nobody there to help me. There's nobody there to say, hey, no.Support, no family support, friends.Yeah, I think my dad and my mom came, but I think they didn't even know what to do at that point. It's like I'm a 30 year child just land in a hospital bed with bullet wounds, and I can't even tell you how many kids in a 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 high. 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, if somebody would have said, hey, you're going to need help. You're going to need a psychologist. You're going to need a therapist. You're going to need somebody to talk to and help you unpack this traumatic event.Absolutely.And that just didn't happen. 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 began to carry a gun every day. I didn't feel safe. And what you can't say, you know, when you grow up, the way that I grew up, you can't say that, you know, that actually hurt when I got shot.No, you have to say whatever, you.Know, I'll get back, you know, I'll get the guy next to me 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. There was no language for paranoia. There was no language for fear. Because you can't be a tough kid growing up in the hood and be afraid. You just got to navigate it. You just got to put the mask on. And so I wore that mask. But deeper than that was the narrative that I created that if I found myself in the conflict, I would shoot first. And 16 months later, at nearly two in the morning, I got into this conflict over a drug deal that I refused to make. And that conflict escalated. And there was this moment, you know, that I always think back to where I turned to walk away.You did.And I turned to walk away. And what I thought was happening was that the person I was arguing with was attempting to get out of the car, and I just turned and fired four shots that tragically ended his life. And, you know, it's a moment that I played over for years of, like, why didn't I just take that second step, you know, and keep walking. Keep walking. Yeah. And it wasn't until I was journaling that I realized that the grip of the trauma of being shot would not allow me to make different decision.Yeah, because you weren't healed. You can't make a conscious decision from a hurt place.Yeah.You have to make that from a healed place.Absolutely.Or a healing journey.Yeah.You know, you got to 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 and 40 years for second degree murder. And, you know, going through the legal process, I was, like, psychologically, I was already traumatized. Like, I was just, like, so numb. And I remember at my sentence, you know, my lawyer telling me, you know, here's what you say to the family. And it was the most superficial apology.Ever 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, as I began to navigate my prison sentence.For you. As devastating or for them?For.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 clinical apology or whatever. Gotcha.You know, and so for years, I, you know, in prison, I just kind of beat up on myself, and I just internalized more of that pain, you know? And, you know, my first five years in prison was just, like, dark, and anger filled. It 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. Yeah. And these weren't, like, you know, people who were coming to visit us to helped 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. You know, they were.By helping you.Yeah, by helping me. But these guys were brilliant. You know, these guys challenged me to read, to think. You know, they challenged my thinking. After I read, we debated. You know, they tried to give me guidance. And even though I didn't listen to them in a moment, you know, that wisdom later on became one of the most valuable gifts I've ever received. And. Yeah, so that's what it was like.The first part of the first five years is dark. You're getting into trouble. Some mentors are trying to help you. You're doing a little bit of the work, but you're still from a hurt place. You're still reactive. You still haven't healed the trauma or done the journaling and the healing work yet. And so what, then? Five years in, you got into the fight with the guard, which sent you into seven years solitary?No, that came about three years later. The second miracle actually showed up in about that fifth year, and it came in the form of a letter from this woman named Nancy. And when I first got the letter, I'm just like, okay, who is this random person writing me?Cause you didn't know what she was.Yeah, I thought it was, you know, just a pen pal. Cause that's what happens in prison. It's like, people hear about your case, and you just start getting these letters from random strangers who are like, hey, I just wanna be friends, et cetera. But it turns out Nancy was the woman who had raised David, whose life I was responsible for taking.Oh, Mandy.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.About five. Five, yeah, five or so years in. And I remember opening the letter and her beginning to tell me who David was. You know, the father, the husband, the man, the friend. And I can tell you, I wanted to 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 continued 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 don't kill again. Jesus watches with you do. That letter destroyed the posada 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 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 mass. 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 change.That's cool.And so I didn't have a laptop, though. I didn't have the typewriter handwriting. It was old school. I didn't even have a real good pen, like, so imagine if you pull the inside of that 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, like, shank the guard or something.Oh, my gosh.And so immediately, I was like, there'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 wrote it up in some paper, and I had you getting in there.I made it 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. 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 additive 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 of 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.

the end of the week. And so the end of the week comes around and it's 300, $5400, mostly in singles and five dollar bills. It's this big wildcast. And the first thing I do is go to the grocery store and I just buy all the cereal that Captain Crunch, everything. Captain Crunch, the lucky charm, fruity pebbles. And then I buy, like, chocolate milk and strawberry milk. You know, the reality is, I'm a kid, you know, I'm gorging this cereal down. But that was my entry into that culture. And within the first six months is when it got real. You know, my childhood friend was murdered.

Oh.

I was robbed at gunpoint. And then I became addicted to crack cocaine at 14 years old. You know, I was introduced to that again by another adult who's like, hey, this is cool. This is what we do. It's fine. We make a lot of money, you know? And so I had to navigate addiction in this adult culture as a 14 year old kidde. 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.

Jeez.

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 want to say, 1998. So high levels of gun trauma, high levels of gun violence within the culture. I can't even tell you how many of my friends have actually been shot or murdered. And so at 17, sitting in the hospital bed, I'm processing this very traumatic event, and there's nobody there to help me. There's nobody there to say, hey, no.

Support, no family support, friends.

Yeah, I think my dad and my mom came, but I think they didn't even know what to do at that point. It's like I'm a 30 year child just land in a hospital bed with bullet wounds, and I can't even tell you how many kids in a 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 high. 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, if somebody would have said, hey, you're going to need help. You're going to need a psychologist. You're going to need a therapist. You're going to need somebody to talk to and help you unpack this traumatic event.

Absolutely.

And that just didn't happen. 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 began to carry a gun every day. I didn't feel safe. And what you can't say, you know, when you grow up, the way that I grew up, you can't say that, you know, that actually hurt when I got shot.

No, you have to say whatever, you.

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

You did.

And I turned to walk away. And what I thought was happening was that the person I was arguing with was attempting to get out of the car, and I just turned and fired four shots that tragically ended his life. And, you know, it's a moment that I played over for years of, like, why didn't I just take that second step, you know, and keep walking. Keep walking. Yeah. And it wasn't until I was journaling that I realized that the grip of the trauma of being shot would not allow me to make different decision.

Yeah, because you weren't healed. You can't make a conscious decision from a hurt place.

Yeah.

You have to make that from a healed place.

Absolutely.

Or a healing journey.

Yeah.

You know, you got to 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 and 40 years for second degree murder. And, you know, going through the legal process, I was, like, psychologically, I was already traumatized. Like, I was just, like, so numb. And I remember at my sentence, you know, my lawyer telling me, you know, here's what you say to the family. And it was the most superficial apology.

Ever 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, as I began to navigate my prison sentence.

For you. As devastating or for them?

For.

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 clinical apology or whatever. Gotcha.

You know, and so for years, I, you know, in prison, I just kind of beat up on myself, and I just internalized more of that pain, you know? And, you know, my first five years in prison was just, like, dark, and anger filled. It 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. Yeah. And these weren't, like, you know, people who were coming to visit us to helped 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. You know, they were.

By helping you.

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

The first part of the first five years is dark. You're getting into trouble. Some mentors are trying to help you. You're doing a little bit of the work, but you're still from a hurt place. You're still reactive. You still haven't healed the trauma or done the journaling and the healing work yet. And so what, then? Five years in, you got into the fight with the guard, which sent you into seven years solitary?

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

Cause you didn't know what she was.

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

Oh, Mandy.

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.

About five. Five, yeah, five or so years in. And I remember opening the letter and her beginning to tell me who David was. You know, the father, the husband, the man, the friend. And I can tell you, I wanted to 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 continued 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 don't kill again. Jesus watches with you do. That letter destroyed the posada 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 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 mass. 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 change.That's cool.And so I didn't have a laptop, though. I didn't have the typewriter handwriting. It was old school. I didn't even have a real good pen, like, so imagine if you pull the inside of that 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, like, shank the guard or something.Oh, my gosh.And so immediately, I was like, there'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 wrote it up in some paper, and I had you getting in there.I made it 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. 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 additive 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 of 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.

don't kill again. Jesus watches with you do. That letter destroyed the posada 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 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 mass. 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 change.

That's cool.

And so I didn't have a laptop, though. I didn't have the typewriter handwriting. It was old school. I didn't even have a real good pen, like, so imagine if you pull the inside of that 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, like, shank the guard or something.

Oh, my gosh.

And so immediately, I was like, there'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 wrote it up in some paper, and I had you getting in there.

I made it 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. 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 additive 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 of 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.