From Invisible Kid to Unstoppable: Turning Pain into Purpose

I didn't always feel like I was the coolest kid in school growing up

That could have broke you.

Like, that can break a person, right? Because hearing that, you know, is, there's the flip side to that, and I don't wanna cut you off, is that, is that person that you read about on the crime shows, right, when they find out, you know, what was said to them and what they lived through.

The fact that you were able to turn that into a positive and use that as fuel to, you know, to do the things that you did, because there's, there's, there's a not so good side to that.

And I've, I found out about the histories of my birth father and birth mother, and, you know, I mean, interesting histories like, uh, my birth father was a professional athlete.

He was in the, uh, Pittsburgh Pirates organization, made Triple A but didn't make it-

Wow

... to the, to the big league.

Great sports coach and everything.

But, you know, he, he had, um, s- several different wives or baby mamas, like five.

Mm-hmm.

Um, he had some addiction issues, um, that were, were out there in his life.

Yeah.

And, um, fortunately I didn't face those, but, you know, I had, I had that drive that, that just wouldn't, I wouldn't be denied.

That's beautiful.

And some of, some of it was a mentorship I got from my mom-

Wow

... um, who would take me to meetings, and she had me doing self-affirmations every morning and-

Mm-hmm

... and that kind of thing