When Life BREAKS YOU, Watch This To NEVER GIVE UP & Overcome Anything! | Inky Johnson

i'll get to it tomorrow i'm like who promised you that right i'll get to it a month from now i'm like who promised you that because life changes so quick right and as people we're often arrogant i was one of them we live our lives and we feel as if we promised something right but when you think about it's like i think you gotta have a dream the school of greatness please welcome us i want to bring your message to my audience so for those that don't know can you share a brief story about your background from athlete to you know breakdown to then break through and what and what what actually you grew up believing and dreaming in what happened and then where you're at now man a kid that grew up inner city atlanta a mom at 16 had me took me back to 125 warren two bedroom home 14 people and uh me and my cousins man we grew up sleeping on the floor pallets you know best time of my life you know we loved it right but like any other kid man i had a dream you know and i felt as if at the time football was the quickest vehicle to get me in the space and place to help my family right my mother's working a double shift at wendy's my grandmother sweetest soul level rest in peace she's transitioned but i wanted to help my family and i felt as if i had the tools and the skills to do that and i had a lot of people in my life that helped me man and so i was i was the first in my family a lot i was the first one to graduate and go to college you know i was the first one that looked as if i had something really promising that was about to happen and so when i went to college university of tennessee a full football scholarship you know everybody back where i was from you know thought like hey man little inc he's about to be the guy he's the ticket he's about to make it like that's our guy that's all he used to talk about my family members that's all they talked about in church all they talked about my former high school crim high school it was one of the lowest performing public schools in the state of georgia when i attended right atlanta public school system and so everybody thought like hey man this cat is about to really make it from where we come from and i thought the same thing but and i got really close to making that nfl dream happen and i went to make a routine tackle september 9 2006 against the university of air force and almost lost my life and it ended my career and it paralyzed my right arm in hand and it sent my life down a totally different path to which the world have come to know me as the inspirational speaker and the servant that i am today but at one point i thought it was gonna be this guy in the nfl playing ball until i retired you and me both man so you had a routine tackle you're playing db yep db routine tackle do you remember exactly what happened i do man what was it like was it on the left side right side of the field was it a run was it a pass play what was this yeah man it was on the left side of the field and it's crazy i remember it vividly man we was in quarters coverage you know i was just backpedaling as a corner zone yeah we had a quarter of the field zone pretty much and when i went to hit this guy you know it was almost like they were in a real wheel route you know guy came out of the backfield turning up five yards out then coming out coming up the field and um you know i'm looking at the quarterback he's tapping it releases it to him and i'm thinking i'm about to hit him maybe make him fumble we can end this thing get ready for florida next week two minutes left and as soon as i hit him it seemed as if there was everything in my body left like one of the scariest moments of my life and i had been in a lot harder collisions but it seemed as if as soon as i hit him everything in my body every breath just left right i had never felt that before it's like i lost total control over my body i hit the ground and i black out never experienced that before right and when i came to it was very quick when i came to my teammates running over like ink get up let's go and i was like i can't and it's like what you mean you can't you always get up man you're captain let's go nourish your injury after the game i was like i can't move and it was a shock i'll never forget it's going from the crown of my head to the bottom of my feet i couldn't feel anything all the way through the body all the way through it just kept going kept going kept going and then it left but it stayed in my right arm and hand so left in your body we could feel and you can move your legs you can move your arm yeah but not the right side right and it stayed there but i thought it was a stinger sure yeah yeah yeah you get dead arm you get a stinger and it stays for a while then it leaves and so that's what i thought it was and so i still wasn't panicky right after it happened i was like ah maybe a stinger you know maybe i broke my arm you know because they brought the spine board out put me on it wheeled me off the field because at that point you could stand up a little bit or you could move but yeah i could i could move my body i just couldn't move my arm you know and so they were like we're going to take you to the hospital you know so then i thought you were working on it you weren't too worried about it no no i wasn't i wasn't worried your body was you could move your neck here absolutely so i wasn't i wasn't worried they get me over they run their tests and they bring me back into a room and everything is still loose you know everything is loose my mom comes in kissing me on my forehead cracks a joke i think everything is all good you'll be fine as football and she goes to exit the room and when she exits the room i'll never forget she made a left when she made the left i flipped my head back to the left when i flipped my head back to the left i saw the head docked and he was running in and he was kind of you know screaming you know at an elevated tone and he was like guys guys get in here we got to rush this kid back to emergency surgery and he's about to die and i was thinking like it was something like you or someone else he's talking about me but i was thinking like everything was so common cool i'm thinking he's joking like not joking but like i'm thinking he's messing with me right because everything had been so calm and so i was like like die die like away from me or die it was like yeah i was like what happened and it was like when we ran the test we noticed you've ruptured your subclavian artery in your chest and you're bleeding internally and he said we got to rush you back and take the main vein out of your left leg and plug it into your chest in order to save your life holy cow yeah he said i guarantee you you won't be alive in the morning you'll bleed out and that's when i thought it was a real situation it's really a situation so you were fairly calm maybe you were frustrated that you got injured you didn't get to finish the game you're like oh this sucks like yeah hopefully i can get back next week or something and they'll be able to tape me up and put up a bandage and i'll get out there with one arm and i'll be fine of course man but then he was like oh no we need to do the surgery now or you may not last yeah holy cow that's a big shock that was a shocker man so what how much time from that moment until surgery oh they took me back right then yeah put the gas mask in and they went to work right like five ten minutes oh yeah it was real they started doing whatever they had to do then like mom there right then yeah yeah she was there but she was waiting out like they told her but they had to take me back right then because they said it was already ruptured and i was already bleeding internally did she get to say anything before the surgery or no i'm sure she said something but at that point i was like oh yeah i couldn't believe it like that's when everything got kind of concerning isn't it crazy one moment can change the direction of your life oh no question one instant no question man one slight turn one hit one one breath could change everything amen and i you know that's affected and impacted even the way that i live my life until this day just not only the injury but it's so many parts of the injury that shaped my perspective until this day i always say to people because they say to me all the time like man did you do anything different did you wear any different pads did you warm up different right and i'm like no man i did the same thing i listened to the same pregame music like my song phil collins i can feel it that's what i joined come on that's right i'm like now listen to the same song wore the same pads yeah but for some reason on september 9 2006 on that day the outcome of something that i did for most of my life was totally different right and so i always ask people and challenge people like when you say something to the extent of not you but just a person i'll get to it tomorrow i'm like who promised you that right i'll get to it a month from now i'm like who promised you that right because life changes so quick right and as people we're often arrogant i was one of them we live our lives and we feel as if we promised something right but when you think about it's like when we try to control things but when you really think about the macro of life in the grand scheme of life we really don't have any control right we can control what we possess emotions attitude thought process perspective how we speak how we respond but just life in general we have no control of that right you think about how many people woke up this morning thinking like man everything is going to be great and life changed right one day you wake up on top of the world next day you wake up world is on top of you right and so it's affected my mentality and my perspective just toward life how i greet people how i see people how i interact right just that one moment and one element of the injury right it's so many things that's happened inside of the injury that shaped emoting me as a person people see the injury people don't always think about the intricacies of how it's shaped and molded and cultivated who i am as a man until his day yeah so how long did it take for you when you had the surgery and woke up to get to a place of peace and finding a purpose or a new identity because i know what it's like to lose the identity of being an athlete absolutely in a moment i broke my right wrist yeah and had surgery and had six months in the cast and tried to like come back from it but realized oh i couldn't straighten my arm for about a year and a half after the surgery in the cast so it wasn't as devastating as you obviously of an injury but the injury and the surgery took me out of the thing i loved absolutely and the identity and i was in a dark place for i don't know probably a year and a half trying to figure out who am i you know where's my value if i can't be this thing absolutely and where i got all my acknowledgement and praise from this one thing that i can no longer do anymore it's like well am i good enough for life even you know what's the value i can bring and contribute to the world so how long did it take for you from that surgery to what did they say when you woke up what was that next step i would say the total process took me a little bit over two years just to get to a real place of just peace acceptance and just trying to figure life out you just didn't know your purpose or what you wanted to do but you're just like trying to recover absolutely maybe i can function back and maybe i could do this you know it's that bravado man you think that come back yeah you're to come back that's the athlete's mentality you think you can come back from anything and so even you know when i woke up and they were telling me that your career is probably over uh your arm and hand will probably never be the same again because the medical term for my injury as a brachial plexus avulsion and i ruptured my subclavian artery and so the brachial plexus is basically the nerve roots that come from our spine that control shoulder arm hand fingers and so what happened at the point of contact the guy's helmet hit me between my shoulder and my neck set my neck one way show the opposite way and it ruptured the nerves from my spine that control arm hand fingers shoulder and so i ruptured also my subclavian artery from just the speed and the impact and so when they were telling me this i'm like no way like i work too hard man i've been working for this since i was a kid and now i get to the point where i could possibly get drafted and now i lose it all i'm like no man and so i went back to the sandpit that week right the next week i was in the sandpit with my teammates with a dunjoy sling and a velcro strap with staples in my body from incisions from surgery right i was back in the indoor complex running right running yeah man with this false sense of hope thinking you're to come back yeah man i'm gonna come back like i'm gonna train i'm gonna come back thinking that like nah man it can't i can't lose it that quick like look at that one little hit yeah like man i've been putting in years i can't lose it that quick that was my thought process and so i didn't have peace at first because it was almost surreal i remember going to sleep early like every day like six pm seven right thinking that man when i wake up in the morning i'll be able to feel my arm again really yeah thinking that man like when i wake up i'll be able to feel my arm and i would wake up man and i would touch my arm touch my hand be like man i still can't feel it couldn't feel anything no sensation no nothing anybody on the skin nothing i don't feel anything even in my back at the time like it was more places than the arm at first it was like bad on the side of the neck part of my pack like and so i would go to sleep early thinking it was a bad dream right i just couldn't i couldn't come to grips with and i could just lose it like that right and so man i would i would wake up and touch that arm like and every day it would be like a period where i would be like man i can't feel it but i'm gonna go to work out right i'm gonna go to the other one i'm on the smith machine with one arm right lifting squat and thinking that i'll be able to make a comeback man and i'll never forget i broke down on the turf and the indoor when reality set in like one day it set in and i i cried man i was in the indoor facility i was on the turf and i was like man i probably never get to play again like really and that day was it was tough on one end of the spectrum because it was like man the reality of i probably won't be able to play again but on the opposite end of the spectrum it's weird it was a level of freedom right that okay man release it like get it out stop holding on to it yeah stop holding on to it just get it out man and so it was it was an interesting situation when that happened right like on one end up i was crying i was hurt but on the opposite end of it it was a level of freedom like okay man now it's time to turn the page and let's move forward yeah yeah so how much longer was that was like a couple weeks a month after nah that was when when i came to that that reality that was closing in on the two years two years later when you weren't because two years was the time frame that they gave me too that if something within is to happen if something is to come back after that like two years yeah you got like two years you know if something is going to happen and so i'm in this two year window thinking oh man i'm like man within two i'm gonna get stronger i'm gonna get sharper my iq is gonna increase it was all this thought process of just someone just come back this machine right but also realizing i'm going through the two years and i'm going to doctor's visits and now when i think back on it i can see it i see when i go into doctor's visits at the mayo clinic in rochester minnesota and they would have a new device and they would try it and think man this is the one inc i remember seeing a doctor cry one day right cry cry man because it didn't work no way and i had become like close with him right because i'm going to see him like every other week like we're cool now right he's thinking well we're going to figure out a way to do that yeah they're trying they want it to work too not even for the sake of ball i think they wanted me to have it just some quality of life right in terms of with my arm and my hand and i'll never forget doctor walking out and he was crying and he said man we want it to work and i was like man i do too but now thinking about that moment and what he must have been feeling at the time i'm totally just locked in right and so i'm just thinking like man like he's feeling what i'm feeling but i'm still not thinking i won't be able to play but now removed from it years later i know exactly what he was feeling he saw me every single day coming here with this false sense of hope like man this can't want it to work i want it to work for him but now it ain't gonna work oh man and he felt it right but i still didn't catch it because i was so so focused it's gonna happen yeah but he knew he knew far beyond far before i got to that point he knew like ah man i don't know when it's going to set in but man i don't know when he's going to get it you know and i came to that point man two years later yeah i came to it how do you let go of an identity that you once were that you can no longer be yeah man it's um that's a great question man and especially for us as athletes or former athletes because we all tie and i think everybody to a certain extent with what we do because if you ask a person hey man um who are you they're going to tell you what they do yeah right because their identity most of the time is wrapped up in what they do and so for athletes it's heavy right that identity crisis of man i play ball i do this right and so when you got to transition into another period or sector in life it's sometimes hard to understand because you don't always get that same feeling and so when guys have to do it or when i had to do it it was tough just trying to figure out what am i going to do right because i've done this for so long and this was the thing that i thought was going to help my family and so i'm big on service right because a lot of people help me and my family coming up and i'll never forget man i got to share this i would go to habitat for humanity because people would help me and my family coming up and so i just love the looks that it will put on people's faces when i was at tennessee they would always have a project for us to do whenever i would go people would always say hey man what happened to your arm right because they would see the atrophy this arm is naturally smaller than my left and so i would just be like oh man it's a football injury and somebody would always be somebody there would be like no what happened right like i know your arm didn't get like that from just like what happened i'll be like just a tackle man i was making a tackle hurt my arm they would keep pressing the issue and i would answer questions and when we would leave somebody would always say hey man you might need to speak you might need to share that i'll be like no i'm cool right because my mother raised me like from the standpoint and the perspective of hey man life don't know your thing right like okay something happens to you pick up the pieces move forward and so i never thought of anything that happened anything i went through with my family like as anything special everybody got a story that's how i view life everybody that i've been through something right everybody's gonna encounter something and so i never looked at speaking sharing i never was the guy like oh man this happened to me let me go share with the world i was like nah figure it out like pick up the pieces move forward and figure it out and so when people would say this i'll be like nah i'm not trying to speak like i don't want to speak right and one day i was in a small group because i was connected to community that was one of the things i did intentionally when i got injured i was like i need community i need to be connected to whether spiritually whether it's light groups i need to be connected and it was a guy shout out to my guy gus older guy like in his 70s i got a couple restaurants east tennessee had him in atlanta sold them did really well in life in a small group one night discussing some things and he says uh man you're selfish i was like me like no man i'm probably one of the most unselfish people you know he was like no man like you're selfish you think your injury and what happened to you is just about you [Music] i was like it happened to me he was like no but you're thinking it's just about you i was like it happened to me is i know inc it's like the things we go through in life man and not just for us right once we get to a place of peace and we figure out how to deal with it it's our responsibility to go out and share that right it's like not before the world all the time but just to share it because other people go through things right other people are fighting just go out and share it and it was the first time i had got hit with something to where i pondered it right so where i was like make a night make a nice point yeah yeah yeah a good point and uh i was getting invitations to speak at the time school assembly uh-huh you know high school arts school birthday party and i got to fill in louis i got the same feeling that i was getting in the tunnel and i was in kneeling i got it i got it right and i'll never forget when i got it i felt it and i captured it i was like this might be it and i spoke did well got home and i'll never forget thinking like man like i might need to look more into this i might need to be more intentional about this right then i meet a guy in west town mall in knoxville me and eric berry eric went first round fifth pick to the chiefs we did a signing me and eric walking eric splits off to go to his car i'm walking a gentleman comes running through the mall stops a couple of feet away from me bawling grown man crying and he says thank you i was like no disrespect sir what are you thanking me for he's like i saw your story on the news he said i got a wife and i got three daughters and he said when i watched your story you made humor about what happened to you he said i was about to leave my wife and my three daughters he said i said man if that guy can hang in there he can fight or what he's dealing with surely i can hang in there and i can fight for my wife and my three daughters and he just walked off wow that's powerful and bro it it made me realize that like i always say to people man like when we go through things and like the first thing we try to do is understand it we want to know why am i going through this why did this happen to me i'm like nah man some things you're gonna go through it's gonna be so tough you're not gonna understand it right away just survive it right and once we survive it then we get to a place of peace hopefully we understand it but then it's time to go out share it try to add value to certain environments we go into in certain people's lives yeah so shortly after that two years i felt like i had survived it and i got to a place of peace to where it was like all right let's move forward yeah that's powerful man from i think for a lot of people listening it's hard to understand why something has happened to them absolutely why did i go through this breakup why did i get fired from this thing why did i have this injury why did is this happening in the world why are people fighting with each other why absolutely and it's not until we can get through it and reflect on it and we have hindsight oh this taught me this lesson or here's why this needed to happen or yeah and and now i think about if i look back in my life from 39 now and i think about all the challenging moments i wouldn't change any of them there's some things that seem so painful that i didn't want to experience but the lesson that i learned from them the person i became by overcoming them is so much more powerful than not having them wow right absolutely that's how i feel um and so when challenging things happen which i don't like when they happen but it's not fun man it's not fun it doesn't feel good it doesn't feel good but when challenging things happen now i feel like i can put myself in a place of peace for moments and say everything that has been hard in the past has all worked out and it's taught me something or it's let go of something in my life even if it's the worst thing ever seeming to me and i'm grateful for them all so let me look into the future and have hindsight in the future and start realizing i don't know why this is going to be powerful but i'm going to give this meaning it's going to help me or help someone else in the future because i'm learning this lesson and that has given me peace in the chaos doesn't mean i like the chaos i'm not looking for it i don't want it stay away from it but i feel like that that strategy has given me a sense of like okay this eventually will pass and hopefully i'll have some tools and knowledge based on that it's good do you wish uh 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 um 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 in 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 oh 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 yeah it was so traumatic to him like oh 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 give me a few help my family and then like we could go through something like just let me help my mom help my grandma help my cousins like when i was a kid man i remember saying to my cousins like if i make it to the league man we can get our own beds one day right we just wanted our own beds right right and so when it happened i remember seeing certain things happen that it caught my attention right but i was so in the midst of what had happened to me that it just caught my attention i think the beautiful thing about adversity and opposition when you live with it it teaches you right if you're open to it right when you live with challenges it teaches you and so the reason that i wouldn't change what happened to me or go back and even change the incident is because of not only the man that is 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 not no no like never right and so they couldn't even how many kids do your mom have my mom just got me and my sister yeah yeah and so my dad he's married and he has two daughters as well but when they had me they were teenagers right and so my dad's trying to figure it out yeah mom and shawn young right they don't have tools they know how to connect with each other or communicate or none of that deal with conflicts none of that man act like a child act like a child have a child yeah and so it created a lot of hurt a lot of resentment on both ends and so for me when i started growing up i had a level of resentment toward my father that i very rarely spoke about and so i would speak to him and we would be cordial when we got to the point of communication before a long time i resented him and so my mother and my father could very rarely be in a room and it'd be peace right very rarely when my injury happened they had to be in a room it had to be peace because it was a much bigger issue at hand they didn't know if they were gonna have to amputate my they 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 the mode of 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's 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 a gentleman stands up in the back of the room my man looked like he's supposed to been in the movie 300. traps up to his ear to my yoked up louis right he 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're thankful for in i said man i'm thankful for 3 p.m he said why 3 p.m i said man i get to raise cats and be the first one in the carpool line right he was like the carpool line really i was like yeah the carpool line i was like but not the carpool line he's like what you mean by that i said the carpool line is extremely important i get to pick my kids up from school most days phenomenal love it right i said but more than that it's about can i condition my mindset and my perspective that when uncertainty happens opposition happens adversity happens i can put my mind my perspective and a space in place to extract some good right and so with that verse in opposition with my arm i gotta 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 that never got paralyzed right i'm extremely grateful for that my right on my hand gets paralyzed i get to go to disability services and learn how to write my left arm 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 yeah that's a gift and that's a talent that not everybody has and it's it's extremely underrated extremely underrated yeah 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 like was there someone helping you get out of that or did you just flip the switch into that mindset yeah i would um i would say part of how i grew up um when you grow up in that two-bed miles with 14 people you don't have a lot of choices in terms of what you're going to eat you know how much of it can you get like i remember watching my mother count change in a uh old buick regal man never forget this and she was counting up change she had a few dollars in there she was trying to get me a pair of cleats never forget it shaped and molded my perspective at practice how i practice like if you ask any coach that ever happened on their team let there be like man that cat you should practice hard because i remember moments like that i remembered as a kid my uncles would stand on the corner all night engaging in their legal activity come in the house take the clothes off that they were on the corner and all night when 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 and they're saying hey man y'all just make sure y'all got a lot of t-shirts from the corner store and y'all just change out the jeans right and so i might wear it one day my other cousin will wear it the next day other cousin will just be shifting you know spinning it around right it shaped my perspective it made me extremely grateful i remember christmas eve we got our first pair of nikes and somebody broke in our house and me and my cousin was going back and forth in the room like man i can't wait till we wear them nikes we're going to race 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 mr race like pull the light pole we got our first pair of nikes for christmas we're going room to room you know what i'm saying we just talking man i can't wait we're gonna race tomorrow and i'll never forget we walked in that room and they were gone oh man and you saw a cat that came through that window hurt right nice 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 herz 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 sitting there and he drove up and he gets out of the truck and he says inc i'm sorry man you know i got to call late and he had like a little brown bag that you get from like a corner store and he was like but you know i was able to get some stuff man this is all i could do at 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 his day on christmas and i don't even need them right this is 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 we go and we grow throughout life it's those moments that keep us grounded that makes us remember where we come from that makes us remember how we've gotten to the points that people know us at that we look back and we think and we reflect on to where we can say all right i got it right and so it's those moments what would you say was the biggest fear or insecurity that you overcame or needed to overcome since after those two years until now was it learning how to do public speaking was it learning how to accept yourself and the way you looked was it connecting with your boys in a certain way or being perceived as someone who got injured was it was the fear or insecurity you had to overcome man i would say um it's layer so i want to i want to touch on it um it was extremely difficult when i first started going out with my arm it was extremely difficult you know because you're single at the time or did you have a girl at the time or you know me and my wife you know we we've been on and off you know she's had more patience with yeah yeah by the time you were with her or on and off yeah on and off and um but she she was always there man it was my immaturity sure but um you know my arm you know it's just naturally you know smaller and so when i first started going out sleeve and i would go out and either people would shy away which would hurt you know in the early years or a person would just look right like man what is that you know and very few people would ask right when i started going out with my sleep very few people would say just in terms of if i'm out in the area like if i'm at habitat for humanity i'm here with the football team so it's all good people are going to come over boom but if i'm out like solo yeah 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 were 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 um running from poverty you know what i considered to be poverty man um because i thought football was gonna help my family and so when i started speaking i started doing extremely well you know 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 i was just running right just trying to speak because i grew up a certain way and i was like man i don't want you don't want to go 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 know you guys feel like in your childhood you're still dealing with or you're running from and you know everybody would raise a hand and say something and he got to me and i was like poverty and he was like are you in poverty i was like no he's like well stop running right and his simplicity 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 have i ever gotten how are you i was 36 now i was probably 30. okay six years ago yeah they're about to play 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 to negotiate with negotiating my birthday week before [Laughter] all right 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 spa i can come back right after that we can work i got it all oh i got it all figured out and she could see how excited i was so she was like oh yeah let go sure go and my wife and my wife and adam since fifth grade so she knows me she 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 how something small wife blew up right she showed a side to me that i hadn't even seen yet right and i knew exactly what it was like it clicked immediately i was like that was the gig i was like she's blowing up not because she's blowing up about the gig she felt as if i value the opportunity the engagement and the money over her and her birthday that was the damage right over the kids over the family over that moment right and so what i had to do was realize that man you got renewable and you got non-renewable moments in life right renewable you can always make some more money right now i'm 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 thought process of running from poverty something i encountered as a kid and once i got to a solid space as an adult you know every next level of our lives demand a new version of us right taking that tool kit yeah 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 in that thought process yeah so how do you negotiate what if you got a 100 000 gig on her birthday yeah yeah yeah i used to say no sorry sorry nike man i can't comment go go right we're good yeah yeah but man just trying to communicate you know that's a skill that yes i don't think it's man we always get or cultivate you know so but yeah it worked out why do you think so many people hold on to their tragedies or traumas so intently in their present from something that happened 2 5 ten twenty years ago why do you think people hold on to it so long i think just the the nature of the impact when it happens right and how it stuns their life right like i have one of my friends who is a high level coach division one coach that ended up getting fired and um great coach man just had a bad run back a couple of years and hit me up and was like hey inc 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 it was hard for me with my arm when people 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 yeah 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 in 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 ten times better for some reason and so i take adversity in opposition and i i interconnected the same way yeah when we go through things it hurts or we figure out a way to get through it but when we share something and we identify with another person to let them know that because oftentimes when people go through stuff you feel alone you feel isolated and you feel like man like is something wrong with me and i think what happens when we go through and we create a level of empathy we show them that oh man you're human like we all go through things like nobody is perfect like i told a guy that had a brachial plexus injury he's like man i see how you got through it like it hasn't been that easy for me i was like no bro it took work it took years like this was painful i went through every emotion that you're probably going through and i had a lot of people to help me with them and so i feel like sometimes it's just the feelings that are attached and interconnected to the experiences that we have that creates the reason that we hold on to it for so long yeah right and i think the quicker we can get through and use what we go through the quicker we can go out and we can make the world a better place absolutely man yeah where do you think you'd be right now if this didn't happen do you think you'd have the same level of emotional intelligence and wisdom and service mentality that you do now or do you think you'd be in a different place i think i'll be in a different place much more reserved yeah much more reserved because just the nature of my personality you know i speak and people see me speak but to be honest i'm an introvert by nature that's why it was so hard for me to do it but i know for a fact if i had to play ball if god would have blessed me to go to the nfl play for a few years play for a few years i 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 the the 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'll be doing work take my kids to school be involved in local community stuff but i never would have discovered some of the gifts that now i know i possess like i'm being completely honest with you bro i never thought i would speak like ever they put me in public speaking in college i dropped the class on the second day yeah terrifying never never like and so for me this is extremely humbling for me like to speak to go out and share it's the thing that i feel like honest like i could do forever right the interactions never get old to me yeah because i wasn't the guy that was saying man i want to go speak i want to go share right i never thought i could speak right when i got to college they were putting me in public speaking because they couldn't understand most of the words i was saying from where i was from you know what i'm saying and so i never thought and so for me to understand and know that my life was being guided by a force and by a source that was a lot greater than me it's extremely humbling to know that there was a plan in place even when my plan didn't work that was extremely humbling for me and so when a father comes up and says hey man 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 it's like man i watch 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 think 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 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 yeah did you beat yourself up for a long time i wouldn't say um 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 quickest you can quicker you can survive it the quicker you can use it the quicker you can extract the lesson from it the quicker you can glean perspective from it and for all of us we're going to encounter those defining moments in our lives right to where it's going to hurt right you went through it i went through it i remember i said to somebody like man it felt like i was in a boxing match and i just got ko life just knocked me out bro and i'm i'm on the mat trying to find my mouthpiece right i'm like spinning out blood i see him over there counting right i'm looking at my guy in the corner he want to throw in the towel i'm like not yet and i finally strengthen muster up to get myself up be like all right let's go i'm ready and i'll never forget that person saying you know what life is so cold-blooded you're gonna get knocked out like that again and again and again so the challenge is will you learn the lessons from it so the lessons doesn't have to keep getting repeated and you keep having to learn it right so when you go through these things of opposition adversity and challenge it's always a lesson it's always a blessing it's up to us to extract it and if we're so concerned with trying to understand why why why we're going to miss the lesson right we're going to miss the blessing and the lesson is going to keep repeating itself i know that from right repeating uh certain relationships over and over again we all got got things like that man it's like without like i got two kids i always try to teach them like one one of our big things is attitude drives performance right attitude drives performance i say to them all the time when you get negative and you get frustrated what does it do to your performance like it goes bad it just gets bigger and bigger negative and negative i'm like exactly and so when it doesn't turn out the way you want it to turn out and you get negative the lesson is just going to repeat itself until you graduate right until you learn how to set up celebrate the pain celebrate my son sometimes he'll come out go five for five right might get two home runs right other times you'll come out go over five right when you go over five are you gonna start huffing and puffing and then you gotta get the lesson repeated again or are you gonna learn at a certain point to say all right man it's baseball it happens so what clap it up cheering your teammate and say you know what today i'm not getting it done on offensive side defense i got you right sometimes i'm not getting it done on this side i got you and so that's the key to life i think sometimes when things don't go our way the quote says it you judge the true character and caliber of a person not by where they stand in times of comfort and convenience you judge true character and caliber of a person by where they stand in times of challenge and controversy right it's an incredible thing and character can be cultivated in the midst of opposition and adversity that's the reason it says it it's king's quote it doesn't say you judge character by how a person responds when everything is going good they know how you're going to respond right celebrate hand clap great help you parade but when things go wrong things don't go the way you want them to they don't unfold the way you want them to who are you because that's the true test of who you are as a person that's your true character that's the essence and the ethos of who you are as a person everybody is going to smile when the sun's shining man but the song says it can't you stand the rain baby it says it yeah and so in light can you stand the rain that's the true tester character i love the uh love remember to heighten the titans oh that's one of my favorite movies man i think i was in college when that came out that's one of my favorite movies and we all watched the you know we all watch it the night before game oh that's the joint that's one of my favorite movies attitude reflect leadership captain you know that's where it's at how real is that though that's real man that's true man that's real and you know the crazy thing um though is like attitude is a small thing that we often underestimate [Music] but we really can control that absolutely did i there's when i bring someone on our team we've got 20 people on our team now nice and when i bring people on obviously we look for skill set and experience and all these different things make sure they have certain skills but i tell people over and over again they're probably sick of me saying it that the things i care about the most is your attitude your energy and your effort because we can teach you a lot of the things that you need to know we can get you a consultant we can hire we can get you a course we can get you whatever to learn than a skill better absolutely you can get coached up on a skill it's hard to get coached up on attitude and energy and effort it's got to come from within you've got to make a decision and a choice i'm going to have a positive attitude i'm going to have a attitude of gratitude or appreciation or whatever it might be in this moment even when it's not going my way absolutely even when i'm going you know things are going off in my life or i just feel sluggish can i shift my attitude can i have a different energy and can i give effort yeah you know you you appreciate the guy who maybe isn't that skilled on basketball or football but he's always diving for the ball absolutely you're like man man he's doing what i wish i was doing this you know he's making me look bad that's demanding the hustler that's just like he doesn't have the the height or the speed or the strength but he's willing to hustle and fight right and i think it's the attitude the energy and the effort you put into your relationship your your career your your health yeah which will dictate the quality of your life in a big way but if we have negative attitude negative energy and negative effort you can't expect great things to happen to you absolutely absolutely so that's good attitude is everything i don't i think i don't think it's a small thing i think it is the thing absolutely and uh that's good i think that's good what did lombardi say his quote uh if you're not fired up with enthusiasm you'll be fired with enthusiasm yeah that's that's the question that's strong right it's like it's not strong attitude of enthusiasm what you're doing even when it's painful yeah try to be enthusiastic and you'll make it a more enjoyable experience you know that's true those three days i don't know if you ever did three days but we did those i think i might have stopped when you were yeah yeah high school two days yeah two because a couple kids like died in high school it was like my senior year 2001 a couple kids in the country died of like heat exhaustion so we used to do three a days and then they cut it back to two because of that and um but i remember thinking like and we had like a military coach in high school yeah and it was like no water break it was like you just pushed through you're just doing burpees for hours you know everything you'd fumble the ball and everyone's running a mile whatever it is and then back in there and it was painful man but i just remember thinking this is only gonna last two hours you know or three hours yeah can i get through this you know and try to have a positive attitude in this time frame then i can rest you know i'm gonna ask you something just listening to you do you do you think mental toughness is a skill or what's your thoughts i think about it i think you got to develop it yeah i think it's trained i think it's something you develop for sure i don't think many people have it like as a kid you've got to develop it absolutely and sports has been the way that i know to develop it i know musicians develop it as well in a big way because they practice and they're dedicated to a craft but i think it's i don't think you're just born with mental toughness i think certain things happen that cause you to have to step up bingo right there's some type of adversity or you're you know don't have the connection with your parents the way you wanted or you're picked on and bullied and you have to endure bingo you either endure or you're just fall behind bingo and i think that enduring energy uh coupled with the emotions behind it keep you going you know so i was driven mostly to prove people wrong as a kid because i was picked on right yeah and i was going through some some stress at home and so i was just trying to prove everyone wrong in my life and i was willing to do whatever it took to prove the people who made fun of me wrong yeah and so i developed mental toughness in a negative sense which made me more angry and reactive when things didn't go my way in sports but it would drive me to be the best i could be but i was a really sore loser yeah and i was you know you hit me i just wanted to hit you back you know i didn't and so i had to learn the lesson so many times until i was like okay i need to be better than the situation i need to rise above it i can't react everything because then i'm on the bench go down so you get on the bench enough you get kicked out of the game enough you're like oh i can't play good so i had to learn how to manage the emotions at some extent yeah um but that was a that was a challenging thing man but when we want something bad enough i think you're willing to be mentally tough absolutely have to be absolutely but if you don't want it bad enough then you're i don't care about it you don't have a meaning attached to the thing you want and i was so committed to accomplishments to get accepted and to be praised by others because i wasn't accepted and praised by others and every and i would go years a decade to accomplish my goal in sports and when i would accomplish all these big goals i didn't i wasn't happy still yeah that's because i was trying to get acceptance from others but i didn't accept myself so it wasn't until i shifted it when i said i'm doing this because i want to be in service of others through my art my expression my inspiration and i'm doing it because i purely love what i'm creating what i'm doing and i accept myself then i started to actually enjoy the process it's good it wasn't about winning it was about the process and and i think it's hard for us to truly love what we do until we fully accept who we are yeah it's really hard yeah that's good it's hard to love what we do until we fully accept who we are as strong i think so man that's strong we can enjoy the things we're doing but if we don't accept who we are then we're doing it from a place of lack we're doing it from a place of unwholeness if we don't accept who we are then we're not whole yeah and so we're giving it an energy that is not a true pure love absolutely it's like i'm doing something i enjoy but for what reason to make myself whole to like prove to others to impress other people yeah but we should just be doing it from a whole center place yeah yeah that's good that's my thought i love that man i love that what do you think is the the i love that what is the biggest struggle you're facing with now is it you know your parent you're you're a father of two kids they're about to be teenagers it's about to be a whole new world uh you know you've been doing your speaking career for 15 years now essentially you know 12 to 15 years yeah what is the biggest challenge you face today the biggest challenge um i face now you know not i really don't look at it like you know how it is as as athletes we thrive off challenges right like we thrive off of it but you know i would say man fatherhood has really pulled the element in the side out of me that you know has really served me well right because wow we're blessed with two beautiful kids 11 year old daughter 10 year old son totally different in terms of how they view life how they approach life and how they do things um of course my son is like my wife is total opposite my daughter is like me right and so some of the tactics early on that i would try to use with my son it wouldn't work and my wife is phenomenal my wife you know at one point in her life she was an educator teacher loved kids right and so communicating with kids for her comes second nature you know i'm more like toughen up a coach yeah yeah bump your eggs and so i leaned on her a lot and she would share things with me like i remember my my daughter man i had this moment it broke my heart man but it broke my heart but it created extreme revelation like it was a light bulb moment but it hurt me as a father like when my daughter was probably say eight and you know i would have this mentality you know whenever they would do something great you know i was the guy that would see it you know and be like man that was great that was cool but if you do this it would help you get that if you did that it'd helped you get this right i was that dude because that was the way i was wired and how i looked at things coming up you know just in sports and life because i was that type of person and i'll never forget my daughter came out one day after school sitting in the carpool nine she comes out she has like a a test grade and she had like a maybe like a 89 and she gets in the car and she was like dad i got 89 on my test she was like you probably don't think it's that good but i'm really proud of myself like i worked really hard i gave it everything i had right and i was like damn i became that guy like i make my kids feel like nothing is ever good enough and i remember talking to my wife that night and i shared with her what jada said and i was like man that really hurt me like as a father that hurt bro like i get emotional about it that hurt me you know what i'm saying because i never wanted my kids or want my kids to ever feel like i don't care if if you do your best and you get a c like as your father i got your back and i'm gonna love you and i'm gonna be proud of you regardless like i'm gonna ride with you regardless i'm your dude you know what i'm saying and i was like man that really hurt me that i made her feel that way that she had to say like dad you might not think this is much but i'm really proud of myself right and my wife says something to me and she said um you know sometimes inc we can be so focused on who a person can become that we forget to acknowledge who they are and where they are she's like sometimes we just got to acknowledge who they are and where they are make it 89 and they gave their best at it hey man great job sometimes they're going to have a 95 sometimes they're gonna have a 104 right but as their father it's my job to always be supportive to always be empathetic to always be understanding of course correction comes accountability comes but at the end of the day they should always know that i'm going to be loving i'm going to be understanding and if you do your best and you say that's your best effort that's enough better yeah i could live with that right one of one of the things uh i think that's beautiful and one of the things i learned from kobe when i interviewed him he said something similar like for one season when he was like 12 either 11 12 or 13 he played basketball for like a summer league and he didn't score one point the whole time like the whole summer yeah all the games he said he didn't score one point i go really and he goes yeah and i went talk to my father and the reason i knew it was okay is because my dad said that he was going to love me whether i scored all the points or no points so it gave him permission to even go harder because he's like i'm going to still feel loved i don't know even if i fail or don't score or don't do the thing and uh he said it was a very powerful experience for him to not score and not succeed and still be loved that's strong so i think it's a you know it's a good reminder for us and i think it could go another way where it's like hey you can do whatever you want and i still love you and they're like okay i'll just sit around the couch so you gotta have some like the drive also inside of your butt you know you got to manage that somehow good question no one to push the buttons but no question man no question you got to know your people exactly you got to know him he was driven also to keep winning you have to keep learning so got to know your people man what's the the biggest lesson being married has taught you since going through this adversity really together and then kind of raising rising in your career and your kind of celebrity and your personal brand how has that worked in your marriage um it's made me realize that my job is not to change my wife my job is to love my wife unconditionally you know because we all involve ourselves whether it be relationships in terms of personal marriage or relationships in terms of people friends you know compadres whatever the case may be like when i was early in my marriage you know me and my wife i'm sure i did things that got on her nerves right i would be speaking in the mirror when i'm trying to learn how to speak right doing certain things and she did certain things that i was like man like i'm not feeling that right and so i had a cousin right he got married young it was um to my young to my right when he graduated high school his joke was married i've been married for years wow right and so i called him one day and i'm complaining to him right and he's been married for a while i'm complaining man yeah she does this then she does this and i'm really not feeling that he listened and he was like um you know you do stuff that get on her nerves too right right i was like yeah yeah but man this bother he was like man listen he's like your job is not to change your wife your job is to love your wife for who she is like she got delivered to you like your job is to love her right and it was a period in my life because of certain things that i made didn't agree with there were certain things she didn't agree with me that i thought i was supposed to present them to her and she was supposed to change him because for most of us when it comes to love i feel like we love the version of people that suits us right we love the version of them that suits us we don't always love them unconditionally like who they are unapologetically who they're not we don't always love people like that we love the version of them that suits us and makes us feel well about ourselves and so for me in terms of my growth and my marriage like i love my wife right because she not only holds me accountable right but she she makes me better and we've been rocking since fifth grade and so if don't nobody else on the planet earth knows me she knows me right she knows when i'm not feeling something she knows when my energy is off she knows when i'm having a tough time she can just sense it and so for me it's been my growth and my challenge in terms of just trying to be a better man because i look at it like this because if i get toward the latter years of my life man and i journal like i journal to my wife i journal to both of my kids and i journal to myself i got four journals that i write in every single day right that i haven't presented to them yet wow right but i just write in them every single day to where i write down why i make decisions choices why do certain things and the reason i do that is because you know when my time comes right and god forbid something happens whatever happens and you know our people come up to people right kids spouse whatever the case may be they say man let me tell you about your father let me tell you about your husband right and you know i would like to think that my kids and my wife they're going to listen right because of the type of people they are but i also want them to have something that they can refer back to like a life guide they can say man i know exactly who my dad is i live with him every single day but also he left me this right that explains our values our morals our principles why he did certain things why he lived by certain things right why he made me do certain things right because if i get toward the latter years of my life and you know somebody comes up to him and say man he was a great athlete that could be cool and that's all they talk about i feel as a man as a father as a person and so i want my wife and my children to always know like oh that's a real dude that's our guy that's not a public success but behind closed doors he's a private failure now that's our guy like he is who he is and so i work just as hard at being a husband and a father than i do at anything else in my life that's beautiful to hear man my dad just passed in february a few months ago thanks man and it was it's kind of a sad thing because he had a uh a brain injury he got a car accident 17 years ago so he was in a coma for three months after his accident then he woke up and he was never the same you know he had this brain trauma a car hit him on top of the forehead through his car and he just he had to learn how to read how to write how to talk again how to do it function as a human so it was like he was a five-year-old again almost in an adult body and so emotionally i wasn't able to connect with him the same way eventually he was able to communicate you could have normal conversations but certain things were off where you know he would forget a lot he you know so it was the same conversation every time i saw him it was kind of like hey where'd you go to play you played football in college right and he came to every game right so he's asking where did you go to school again and so he could communicate but it wasn't all functional so for 17 years i didn't get to have that relationship with him right he was there but it wasn't the same yeah but he wrote letters that i still have today from from when i was 15. wow and i kept those letters and i get to see the way he thought the way he loved the way he learns and those are very meaningful to me those letters to have that because for 17 years i didn't get anything from him i didn't get letters i didn't get a phone call because he just wasn't there mentally right so it wasn't his fault he was just the brain trauma but those letters are very meaningful and so that you're the reason you're doing that i think it's really powerful just for you and gonna be for them another thing we had his funeral here in february and all of his old friends came out who i hadn't seen in a long time and they got to share stories about who he was back then beyond you know 17 years ago when we kind of remember him before the accident it was beautiful that they came out and said this is the man your father really was wow and here's how he showed up for me and this is the type of character he had in the community and it was really touching and emotional for me to to meet these older men and women who were talking about him that way because for 17 years it was so hard because it was kind of like we lost the man he once was but those memories didn't die with them the impact didn't die the connection didn't die and so i'm really glad you're doing that for your wife and for your kids man man that's the first time i've heard somebody say that they've had something like that yeah that's strong man yeah it was strong it was beautiful it made it really meaningful during a time that i couldn't find meaning within 17 years wow it was like why did this accident happen without when i felt like i needed him the most you know what i mean when i i got injured in my injury and stopped playing right after his injury and i didn't have him to lean on anymore so it became this like challenge but to hear those stories and to have those letters was a beautiful part of the journey for me so i'm glad you're doing that man that's strong i'm really glad you're doing that if you could only let's hypothetical this isn't going to happen but say hypothetical scenario you you don't get to give those journals to them and you only get to share one message with your kids [Music] what would you say to them and they could hold on to this message forever but it would only be one message what would that message be enjoy every aspect of life enjoy every aspect of life and don't waste any experience because i feel like for most of us we enjoy the good parts right and for most of us most days are good days right but we often waste experiences that don't show up or turn out the way that we want them to and i feel like that's a big mistake because in those experiences are some of the greatest lessons and the greatest opportunities to shape and mold us into beautiful people right and so when i say enjoy every aspect of life enjoy everything ups down successes failures highs lows like everything right because in the end it's the culmination of all of that that shapes louis it's the culmination of all of that that shapes inc it's the culmination of all of that that will shape who they will become and so enjoy all of it don't waste any of it man on the days where it's great hit pepe ray celebrate it days when it's not celebrate it might be hard but celebrate it like enjoy it right tough times don't last always tough people do we hear it all the time but everything passes with time right and so i just tell them enjoy every aspect of life and don't waste experiences a couple years ago i looked up i was curious to figure out what the how many people die every day and i was just googled it and said on average 150 000 people die every day or in the world in the world right just for whatever every cause and every time i think of maybe i'm going through something sad or a challenging moment i think 150 000 people didn't wake up today and i did yeah man just for that reason alone it's a beautiful day absolutely and i think it's any way we can find perspective is powerful it doesn't mean we shouldn't feel our feelings and we can you know grieve and go through sadness and cry and all these things don't stop these feelings but i think it's you don't want to stay in those feelings forever because they hold us back from service from being there for our loved ones our friends our family our team our community and our creator and it's like what can we do with the tools and the skills that our creator has given us to be of service to the next person absolutely whether it's hundreds of people millions of people or one person absolutely focusing on that like you said is the greatest gift when we give it to someone else not when we buy something for ourselves and use that with your tools and your story as well if you could only share one thing with your wife and she didn't get your journal what's the thing you'd say to her i think i would say to my wife this is funny man because this past this past uh anniversary our anniversary was in april and she had to be how many years uh we're on 11 and she had to be um she had to be in orlando with my daughter at a cheer competition oh you should have said oh yeah yeah yeah where are you and i was gonna ask you my son and so i sent their little text in the little message and i was like i'm there i'm there she's like you're not here like y'all in atlanta so i was like no i'm there i'm always there like no matter where you go i'ma always be there right a piece of me will always be with you and a piece of you will always be with me right because of who we are and how we've grown through our life we've been together since we were kids like talking 10 years old like been at it for a long time and so the one thing that um my wife lost both her parents when she was young like elementary school she lost both of them so she was raised by my grandmother and i always felt like my wife was a gift to me right because when my wife you know even when he was young i felt like god delivered my wife to me like as a gift that was beautiful right her spirit right what she had been through in life the hurt she had endured and so i felt like it was always my job to protect the heart to protect her she was being raised by grandmother grandmother elderly lady and so for me with my wife i always want her to know that you got this babe like i always tell her you got this and what you got this is is everything you got this right as a parent you got this right if there's ever a time when i'm not there me and my son was in a pretty bad accident last year flipped over wow like yeah man yeah like flipped over by the grace of god we both made it out i had a little scratch on my arm car flipped car flipped damn bro thought it was about to flip off the ramp was this icy or snowy or something raining storm we both made it out and i'll never forget yeah it was scary man and uh we got out of the car i'm getting caught my wife and the whole car is just crying but she was like pouring like man i almost lost y'all right and it was a tough moment but i remember like just thinking at night like man have i prepared my wife like if there was ever a time to where she had to move forward without me and so for me my message to her is always baby you got this right it's preparation you got it right and so for me that would be my message to my girl like if there's ever a time when i'm not present and lord forbid something happens to me you got this you know what i'm saying yeah it's like that word we hear when we're young from a coach or a parent that belief that injects belief in us right like hey louis man you got this when you're young you're trying to figure it out and you remember it right hey man you got this man i'm telling you know i'm a smaller guy yeah right and you remember those things man it's the simple things in life that people don't think always makes a big difference that when a person gets alone or person really needs something like that they can rely on to get through adversity opposition or just a rough patch you remember things like that you remembered them letters your father absolutely man you know like you remembered that and so just sometimes simple words so hey man you got it yeah you know remember the titans [Laughter] i want uh i got a couple final questions for you but i want people to follow you inkyjohnson.com yes sir inky johnson on uh social media inky johnson motivate on instagram as well as well is that where you spend the most time instagram yeah yeah i'd be on ig and uh twitter man you know every day i jump on twitter and ig but yeah nice that's cool we'll make sure to follow you over there and if anyone listening or watching wants an incredible speaker at one of your events then make sure to inkyjohnson.com and uh and and send you an email and oh my god see if stevie's available he's an in-demand guy you know you never know when he's available so make sure you schedule it a year in advance get the discount for next year dance now you know greatness that's right that's it man um anything else we can do to support you starts following you online and checking out your stuff yeah um you know and i don't say this in like a cheesy way but like you know we always look at the world all of us right and when something happens right like you see the mass shootings that happen or whatever the case may be and we all see things that happen in the world man and our heart hurts you know what i'm saying whether you see and we can't control it you know what i'm saying things happen sometimes it's just out of our control and you always think about like man what can i do is there something i can do and just go out man and just be a good person man like it don't cost nothing to go out and offer a kind word to a person every day it don't cost nothing they go to a random act of kindness it don't cost nothing to go out and just share word of encouragement to somebody like every day just doing our part to make the world a better place it doesn't take anything grand right like it doesn't take anything special just go out every single day and do our part and just watch the the triple effect of that when we go out and we serve you know what i'm saying and so just make the world a better place you're a kind human being that's the key man it don't cost a thing it doesn't know what i'm saying just go out and be a good person man this question is called the three truths so imagine hypothetical it's your last day on earth many years away you get to live as long as you want to live 100 200 however long you want to live but eventually you gotta turn the lights off all right and you gotta go to the next place you get to accomplish all your dreams yeah live your life see your kids grow up all these different things but for whatever reason you got to take all of your message with you gotcha this interview is gone anything you create online is gone books anything you create it's gone the journals are gone your family doesn't have the journals all the other things another hypothetical right but you get to leave behind three lessons to the whole world three things you know to be true from your existence and that's it what would you share your three truths my three truths would be the first one this two shall pass whatever you encounter whatever you go through and i say this obviously uh referring to tough moments right this too shall pass right every storm has an expiration date every storm runs out of rain this too shall pass will be the first one learn the art of patience right be patient in the midst of good times and bad times learn the art of patience patience will reveal certain things to you about situations circumstances in yourself that you didn't know exist and always be willing to be empathetic right for most of us right when things happen we have sympathy for people right like oh man that's really unfortunate what happened to that person we have sympathy i think the power of empathy is when somebody goes through something or somebody is dealing with something empathy hey louis i'm with you bro you got it yeah i'ma walk with you man call me if you need me that's empathy sympathy is man you see what lou is going through it's tough i hope he gets through it empathy is hey bro i'll be willing to walk through the fire with you if you need it yeah right be empathetic inky i'm so grateful we got to connect right now i hope we do a lot more stuff in the and hang in the future man i want to acknowledge you for your courage it takes a lot of courage to overcome what you've come from the pain the trauma the identity of loss to transition it into something for good i think a lot of people hold on to their pain so much and it becomes their identity moving forward you used it you let go of an old identity and you're using a new identity for good as opposed to holding on to the pain so i really acknowledge you for expressing your talents and your gifts with the world in the way that was scary to do you didn't think you were going to speak you had to overcome that fear to even get this skill out there so i acknowledge you for all the things you've gone through and most of all for being a great father man i think that's the the most beautiful part is hearing your story as a father which i'm sure you make mistakes absolutely a ton of them but but stepping up for your kids and and being a great husband is is what makes an impact on communities thank you so if you're showing up in that way man i acknowledge you for that appreciate you can i say something to you man sure brother i think um as men and as people we don't we don't say this enough to each other but i'm proud of you bro thanks man proud of appreciate you man absolutely from one brother to another man every day one step at a time that's it bro that's it oh step on the top man thank you brother final question what's your definition of greatness my definition of greatness is um um i heard kobe say something great and i know you asked mine but i gotta say this said every single day i was pursuing greatness even though i knew i would probably never catch it just the fact that i was willing to pursue it i would defeat most of my opponents because they would never pursue something that didn't have any guarantees attached to it so when i think greatness i think about having the courage to pursue it because most people won't even pursue greatness because they feel as if it's something that's so far-fetched that they'll never attain it yeah i feel true greatness is having the courage to just involve yourself in the pursuit the process of trying to be your greatest self right self-mastery is to constant pursuit so being willing to show up every single day and constantly pursue greatness of trying to be our best selves yes sir nikki johnson my man appreciate your brother my brother but then i realized that i have a very god put me in a very interesting spot of life where he made hell my teacher he made hell my teacher and a lot of people don't understand that so i'm trying to give people a different thought process of

Channel: Lewis Howes

Views: 220,295

Keywords: Lewis Howes, Lewis Howes interview, school of greatness, self help, self improvement, self development, personal development, success habits, success, wealth, motivation, inspiration, inspirational video, motivational video, success principles, millionaire success habits, how to become successful, success motivation

Id: saflvVPSQI4

Length: 90min 52sec (5452 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 20 2022