September 11, 2024 • 55 mins
"I AM NOT GOING TO DIE." 911 World Trade Center Survivor Sophia shares her escaping from the Crumbling Building!
"One of the rare survivors from above the 92nd floor where the airplane struck."
Inside, everything was falling apart.
The building was crumbling, the only light came from the flashing red emergency signs, and people were screaming, "We're going to die!"
But deep inside, I refused to believe that.
I started shouting, "No, I’m not going to die!
God loves me, I’m going to make it—I haven’t even seen my son yet!"
I raced through the chaos, opening every door I could, desperately searching for a way out. And then...
👉 You’ll need to listen to this episode here on Apple or you watch the full interview replay premiering today on my Youtube channel (CarlosInspires) at 3:00PM PST / 6:00PM EST Today on 09.11.24
https://www.youtube.com/@carlosinspires
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music.
(00:07):
In the planet.
When a group of 19 Al Qaeda members hijacked four airplanes,
and two of those planes hit the World Trade Center.
And ladies and gentlemen, on today's episode.
(00:29):
Music.
I bring you guys an incredible story of a survivor that was inside that building
that never shared her story.
Some of you may can relate where horrific things happened to us and we holding
(00:50):
on to those things for a very, very long time.
I can relate to it. I bet you also can.
In this incredible story, she will tell us from her point of view being inside
that building, 18 years old and pregnant, when the floor collapsed underneath her.
(01:17):
Never shared before on any media, on any TV station.
We have the honor to bring you guys here on the stage.
I'm Sophia Galen. What's up, Sophia? How are you, my friend?
I'm good. How are you guys?
We are doing amazing. We are doing amazing. Such an honor to have you here with us today.
(01:41):
And, you know, I know you and I have been talking and you and I were just discussing
here before this live that, you know, another colleague who's a reporter, N.J.
Burkett, was in front of the tower that day. and he himself never could share
the story for it took him 19 years and he could never share that story,
(02:03):
hunt him down. And I'll play the scene.
He's one of the very few reporters that happens to be documenting in front of
the building when this horrific scene happened.
This is as close as we can get to the base of the World Trade Center.
You can see the firemen assembled here, the police officers, FBI agents,
and you can see the two towers, huge explosion now
(02:25):
raining debris on all of us you know just very very
you know crazy scene to report and i
was looking at a segment about n and j that
you know he couldn't share it since that happened that
he couldn't talk about it you know for 19 years before he
talked about it a documentary and i was saying it's funny how you know something
(02:47):
similar you know happened to you you know 20 years And we want to give some
credit to AP News for some of the top 20 most incredible photos that documented this horrific event.
And I'll be playing them throughout the show for you guys that are watching
live here with us on the Carlos Inspire show, where we are documenting incredible
(03:08):
stories of inspiration, teaching business and branding.
So the ones who doesn't have the means around the world can learn from others,
experience and impact their lives.
We are documenting on the Carlos Inspire show for many, many years,
interviewing from startups to celebrities and billionaires and every person in between.
(03:29):
That you have a voice. You have a message. Your voice matters. Your message matters.
This show is about bringing people together and not dividing us.
And Sofia, I wanted to, you know, before we go into this, I wanted to tell us why now?
Why 20 years later you decided, you know, to share this story with the world
(03:51):
before we go into the details of you being inside that building?
Honestly, it's easy for me to talk about the experience because I was so detached
from it since this happened.
So I can talk to people about it face to face.
But when everybody tried to push me, like, write a book, tell your story,
(04:13):
you have an incredible story.
Tell people about it. It was about me and my story.
But since everything has happened with the pandemic, it's no longer my story
because this is now our story of how I was able to work through my trauma.
And right now, when the entire world is traumatized, it's no longer my story to keep for myself.
(04:40):
This time, it's time for me to tell other people my story so they can learn from it.
That's why it's time. Wow. And I'm so honored to have you here sharing that with us.
And it's funny because you and I were talking the other day on Instagram and
(05:01):
you brought up a great point. And I ask you how many people survived,
winning, winning, true, how many died.
There's plenty of stories out there and documentaries that talk about the nearly
3,000 lives that were lost that day.
And I was sharing with you a story of my own two days before the World Trade Center.
(05:24):
I'm holding on here to my hand and to a photo that I took from the State of Liberty.
And it's the World Trade Center. Two days before, on 9-9-2001,
I went to visit the State of Liberty and the World Trade Center.
The Brazilian independence is on September 7th. So every year,
you know, a whole bunch of Brazilian people gather in New York. And we like to party.
(05:48):
And others in our New York and friends have a lot of moral friends and,
you know, entrepreneurs, friends and clients of mine that lives in New York.
And we go there every year. And you know what's funny?
Since 2001, I couldn't go back to New York for 15 years.
I couldn't go back. Even all the training that I have, I just lost a lot of friends.
(06:09):
And I couldn't go back there either. I went back because my publisher forced
me to go there to release my book and to speak for a large audience.
And even though I didn't want it to do it, I said, could you pick any other city?
And it's funny now how even I can think about that because it doesn't matter the level of training.
Once we put something in our mind, and if that thing is right there in the front
(06:31):
of your prefrontal cortex, it's there.
Everywhere you look, all the things that happen to us. But I can tell you something,
guys, you are not your feelings.
A lot of us, they go through a lot of difficult things in life.
Some stories are more horrific than others.
Like Sophia being young and pregnant inside that building.
Like when I was a little boy that lost a lot of loved ones and seeing people
(06:54):
being murdered or being shot in the head nearby me on the streets.
I lost my father in a horrible car explosion accident.
My stepfather that was murdered. I was abused mentally and physically.
And all of us go through things differently. Some of us is just more chaotic
than others, but sometimes those things, they hunt us down.
(07:17):
If we don't talk about it, if we don't share it, I never like to share it for
many times. And that shit hunt me down.
Whether it was alcohol, drugs, the decisions that we make.
And that's why I love sharing stories and bringing amazing stories like Sophia
here. So that I can inspire.
If we can inspire one person, one children that we can save in the barrios,
(07:40):
in the favelas, in the hoods, around the world. If we can just save one.
As I like to say, save one, win one.
It's all worth it in the end. And it's crazy. And I keep this photo, Sofia, in my studio.
You know, it gets me the chills when I think about it. I tell my daughter two days before.
And if you guys are into numbers, my wife is also born on that day.
(08:01):
My grandma that was married for 60 plus years with my grandpa also died that day.
My uncle died that day, yesterday. You know, it's all how you look at it.
But, you know, I choose to focus on what is positive, not what is negative. I focus on the smiles.
I focus on the day before 9-11. I focus on the day before the abuse.
(08:25):
I focus on the day before the murders.
And because what is wrong is always available, ladies and gentlemen. So what is right?
We have to make a decision, draw a line in the sand that enough is enough.
And this is a moment where we come together and stop fighting because whether
your loved one was vaccinated or not or who they voted for, none of these people in power care about us.
(08:49):
It's about all of us coming together once and for all and stop with the whining
and moaning and complaining about things outside our control.
The only thing that we can control is right now, this very moment.
And Sophia, I wanted you to walk me through, You know, I just get fired up.
I got a lot of emotions here right now.
I lost two uncles in the last seven days, and my mom is not doing so well.
(09:11):
So it's very difficult for me to do this show here today.
But I know that a life will be saved out of there today.
I know that every time we do this show and televise around the world,
a percentage of people watching may be suicidal and going through a tremendous amount of difficulty.
And I wish that when I was going through that myself, somebody would spoken
life into me that was also going through a whole lot of things.
(09:35):
And that's why I do what I do. Some of my friends, they say,
I don't know how you do this, Carlos.
I was, you know, interviewed a few times this past couple of days,
and they just don't know how I have the ability to share it.
Because I made a promise a long time ago to a few friends that died.
I'll share the promise towards the end. But Sophia, I want you to walk me through that day.
It was a beautiful Tuesday in New York, 20 years ago this morning.
(10:00):
Yeah, absolutely beautiful. Beautiful. And now, you know, so tell me,
you know, so you walk in the morning, your mom, you know, tell us your mother's
telling you, come on, you're going to get to work early.
Walk us through that morning. I'm from the Caribbean, so I'm always late.
I'm a hard worker, but I'm always late. That morning, we actually made sure
(10:22):
we checked to make sure the iron was off. Everything was good at home.
So we didn't have to run back and we made it to the bus on time. We made it to the train.
We made it to the bus. We made, we made everything on time.
And my mom got off on the Whitehall stop.
And just before she got off the train that morning, she's like,
Hey, you should be getting to your desk at 845.
(10:43):
You're early today. I'm like, yeah, 845.
So I took the train after she got off.
And I always got off on the Cortland exit because getting off on the Cortland
exit, I had to cross the street.
And mind you, I am horrible at crossing the street.
Can't tell you how many New York City buses I came face to face with in my life.
(11:04):
But crossing the street to go across the plaza just to see the grandeur of those
buildings every morning that I got to gave me life.
That it was magnificent and I love that view.
And as I was crossing that morning, the farmer's market was set up and I carried
mac and cheese with me for lunch.
(11:24):
And the first thing I thought is, okay, no mac and cheese for lunch.
We're going to go down to the farmer's market and get something fresh,
get some of that hot apple cider donuts.
And walked into the building, go down the stairs.
And the best thing is that Ben and Jerry's cart right outside the entrance to
the elevator banks that I had to go into to World Trade Center,
(11:45):
and then stand in line to get my ID.
Ever since I was still new there in
the building, every morning as a temp worker, I would have to get an ID.
And that's why the ID that, you know, Carlos will show you guys in a few,
has my picture that morning.
They snapped a picture of me, put the floor that I was going on,
the 92nd floor to World Trade Center, the company that I was with, Aon, and the date.
(12:11):
Has the date and got my ID, turned around, got in the express elevators to go up to the 78th floor.
And then from the 78th floor, I got on the local elevator to go up to the 92nd floor.
And it was while I was in that local elevator going up to the 92nd floor,
I started hearing just screaming loud, blood-curling screams.
(12:35):
And it was just me in the elevator by myself. And the first thing I can think,
it's like, geez, those guys who are fixing the elevators all week last week, what are they doing?
And as soon as I got off the elevator, turned left, and it was just a shot,
the view next to the receptionist desk of one World Trade center and just paper flying from it.
(12:57):
And I just stood there like there in headlights.
I couldn't think, I couldn't move. I just stood there looking at the paper because
just the night before, after I left work,
I saw a piece of paper on the plaza, one New York plaza, and just a blank sheet
of eight and a half by 11 piece of white paper just got up and started drifting up and up and going up.
(13:19):
And I was looking at it going up across the building, the front facade of the building.
And I kept looking while I was walking and almost fell in the subway station
from just looking at a piece of paper.
So when I get into the towers on that morning and all I see is paper drifting,
it's like, I saw this yesterday and it stopped me.
The thing that woke me up was my boss, Patrice.
(13:43):
She was grabbing me at my shoulders, yelling, Sophie, Sophie.
And when I finally came through, she's like, Sophie, you got to get out of here.
That's when I noticed she had everybody lined up going down the stairs already.
And she pushed me in the line and she's like, Sophie, go, go with Brian.
And then I saw her heading back to the floor. And I'm like, where are you going, Patrice?
And she was like, she's the fire marshal for the floor. So since I was there,
(14:05):
she had to go and make sure everybody was off the floor Because if I was coming
up, more people could be coming up on the other side. So she went back.
And Patrice never made it out of the building.
I saw her face plastered on the news the next morning while we were watching the news.
Wow. Wow. That's crazy. You know, yeah.
(14:28):
It's just amazing. You know, I pray and I want to, I think my condolence to
all the lives of the families that are watching us now.
That lost a loved one or a friend in that building, all the city of New Yorkers,
the fire department, the police department, every single soul and body that
went there inside that building that knew.
And some of them knew, man, the fire department, that they were never going
(14:50):
to walk out of that building.
And did you, like, did you knew, like, that the world was changing outside at
that moment? No. Not Sophia?
No. In your mind, it was just like, I'm assuming, you know, I heard that you
guys went through a few fire drills a few times a year where you guys had to
(15:11):
go down some of the, you know, but I mean, what was going on in your mind?
You had no idea what was happening outside.
I was there for one month and I had a week off in between that one month.
So I was not trained. I was not prepared. Actually, there was a lady while we
were evacuating. there was a lady who was heavy set and a lot older and she couldn't make it down.
(15:36):
So she stopped and I stopped with her to make sure she was okay.
And she's the one who said, I did this back in 1993 and they made me walk all
the way down and then told me it was okay to go back up. And I'm like,
what are you talking about?
And she's the one who told me for the very first time in my life that they were bombed back in 1993.
And this was after we already got hit by the plane in the building. And I was like.
(16:02):
That was the only time it hit me that this could be something serious.
At first, it was just what's going on. Like, I guess my innocence kept me sane for the majority of it.
Wow. I mean, you were 18 years old and you are pregnant.
And now you're walking down through these setaways.
And for you guys that don't know the exact numbers and the timelines, let's start.
(16:27):
We're going to, I want to bring you guys into that scene right now.
And I love Sophia for, you know, for telling us and being strong because this
is not something easy to talk about.
And at 8.46 in the morning on that Tuesday, the first airplane,
United Airlines flight 175 hit the South Tower.
(16:50):
An unknown number of people at that moment. Nobody knew what was going on.
And so as you guys can think of it, Sophia had to be in her desk at 8.45.
At 8 46 that thing hit
and she's there in her desk now she's being told to
walk back down to the staircase from the 92nd floor and as you guys know not
(17:11):
that many people survived above the the crashing sites and 903 the south tower attack happens.
And you are walking down the staircase and walk us through.
You're walking down and you hear a loud noise and the floor collapse underneath you.
(17:32):
Walk us through that, you know, as you're walking down to the staircase.
It's you and a whole bunch of colleagues and it's a whole bunch of people.
And I bet you none of you guys know what's happening.
So walk us through that and you hear that loud noise. And then I want to get
into the Miracle Stairway.
Yeah. So at 9.03, I was on the 82nd floor because I kept stopping.
(17:59):
I met this lady named Rhonda in the stairwell.
And she was like, we have to stop and call your mom to tell her to not come
to the site where we are for her to stay where she is and for me to go get her.
So we kept stopping on each floor to try and get a phone, but the lines for
the phones were really long.
So after stopping on several floors, she was like, let's just keep going down.
So when we got to the 82nd floor, that's when the plane hit the building.
(18:25):
At the time, I didn't know a plane hit the building.
All I know is that I'm going down one set of stairs.
Next thing you know, there's this loud noise. It all happened at the exact same time.
Noise. And I see the wall in front of me because I was getting ready to turn
onto the platform and the door was to the right.
And I see the crack in the wall. The wall starts to crack.
(18:48):
And then I just start feeling air under my feet.
And I remember just jumping onto the floor and sorry, jumped onto the floor.
I think I landed and hit my knees and my chest, just trying to make it onto the open doorway.
And then I got up and just started running down this hall.
(19:11):
And that's when I saw it was like this, like a little archway
and there were two women and a guy and
this guy was crunched down on the floor holding his head and
the two women were bracing almost like earthquake and
somebody was yelling earthquake and like just bracing and stuff was just crumbling
you could literally the windows were cracked open sorry not cracked there was
(19:35):
no window there was no glass in the windows And the whole building inside was just crumbling.
And the only, there was light, but it was dark.
And the light from the fire, the emergency, the red light just kept flashing, flashing, flashing.
And people were yelling, we're going to die. And I don't know why.
(19:59):
I guess, again, my innocence, I started yelling, no, I'm not going to die.
You know, God never, I never had to study for a test.
God loves me. You know, I'm going to make this, I'm going to make this happen.
I haven't seen my son yet. And I just started yelling. I don't even know what
having a study for a test has to do with anything, but I knew God had my back that day.
And I started looking for another stair to go down. And I remember running down
(20:22):
this hall and just opening any door that I can find.
And then I finally found another set of stairs that wasn't damaged.
And I ran back and I'm like, guys, there's another stairs. There's another stairs.
And everybody was just yelling. They just kept yelling. They're going to die.
And I was angry. And I'm like, there's another stair. Let's go.
And they weren't listening to me. They weren't coming. So I went by myself,
(20:45):
got in the stairs and started going down again.
And that's when I met a new group of people going down.
Wow. Wow. It's just incredible. And amen.
I'm over here, you know, there's so many feelings and I can feel you and I can, I'm very intuitive.
God's always whispers into my ears.
(21:07):
And, you know, as I always preach around the world when I speak on stage,
you know, God will never put us through something if he doesn't think we can handle it, you know.
Oh, man. Somebody drop an amen right now. They are listening to us live. Thank you.
Because, you know, and I want to talk about, just to give you guys watching
us here now, for you guys that are watching us on video, I'm actually putting
(21:30):
a series of images on the screen for you guys that are listening.
I highly recommend you guys also watch the replay later.
Because I'm showing you guys over here the Miracle Stairway.
Because I really want to bring you guys into that scene with us in that moment.
Like I told you, this has never been shared before.
And I'm giving you guys a different view over here with Sophia and I'm so happy
that she's agreeing to play with us here full out and talk about it because.
(21:54):
This helps us talk about it because it's going to inspire others out there not to hold back.
There is always another way if you don't quit. There is always another route if you don't give up.
When opportunities doesn't knock, then you go out there and you build a damn door.
Yeah. And as this floor collapsed, ladies and gentlemen, Sophia,
Pat, to continue on descending on the way out of that building, it's no longer there.
(22:20):
Some of you guys right now at home listening to us, you might not think.
It's the end. Well, let me tell you something.
At the end, everything is going to be okay.
And if it's not okay, it's not the end. Come on, Brother Carlos.
At the end, everything is going to be okay.
(22:42):
And if it's not okay, ladies and gentlemen, it's not the end.
And as you guys can see over here on the image, that's three stairways,
A, B, and C, located on the 82nd floor, which Sophia happens to be 18 years old and pregnant.
Before she was married, her name was Sophia A. Thomas.
(23:04):
So for you guys wondering right now, it's Sophia Cannon.
And this young lady walking down, her stairways collapsed underneath her,
and she figured her way out.
And here's something that is incredible that Sophia and I were discussing that
we never thought of this before.
All these years that the things that
(23:25):
the stories and the things that fermented us and some
of our friends and family members and here's
something incredible they were on the
81st floor and 82nd floor
there were 12 you know what do they call the 12 24 ton elevator machines so
like this huge machines and it's 12 of them as you guys know i like to talk
(23:49):
about the 12 apostles slash 12 Avengers
for my religious and non-religious brothers and sisters out there.
And because of this 12 big machines with the impact of the airplane coming through
the flight path, it pushes it, those 12 machines.
(24:11):
In the angle that it protect.
The only stairway that would allow Sophia and her friends James,
to come down that building now look
how crazy this is it destroyed all stairway
b stairway c and it pushed those
machine those huge machines 12 of them on their stairway that sofia was blessed
(24:37):
to found because on the other doors that you were looking for you couldn't open
them right when you you opened the door it was just nothing there right and
that must be a hell of a feeling I mean,
as you're going through that and your friends and it's like,
do you remember how many people were in your group coming down for their.
Carlos, in 2015, when I met my, my husband and I told him, you know,
(25:02):
like, Hey, just need you to know what you get it into.
I've got post PTSD and this is, this is why this is what happened.
He, he was shocked and he went and he started doing research to try and understand
the gravity of what I experienced before getting into this relationship.
And he comes back one day and he goes, did you know that it's only about 15
(25:22):
or 16 people who survived around the area that you were on because it got hit
so hard on those floors? Like, what are you talking about?
There was like a lot of people in the stairwell around me. There were lots of
people in the stairwell. He goes, yeah, but you told me that the stairs fell
from under your feet and you had to jump on and you go.
And I'm like, yeah, that's what happened. He goes, well, what happened to the
(25:43):
people that were next to you?
Carlos, we're in a park in a public area and I dirty cried with snot everywhere
and it hit me like a ton of bricks hit me like all of those years in my head.
It was, oh, we're in this because at no point in time, it was me going to survive.
It was, we are in this, we're getting out of this building.
(26:07):
So it wasn't until 2015 that I realized that if there was nobody jumping onto
that floor with me, that hurt.
Wow wow man that's crazy
you know that that you know i always talk about the stairway to
heaven from led zeppelin and now it's
like it's the stairway to hell i mean that's going on in you guys mind and going
(26:30):
down and and you know and it's crazy because one thing that you and i talk about
is that it was no counselors around that time u.s none of us you know i mean
i mentor and train and many counselors and therapists around the world.
And I know how much trauma you guys take on a daily basis from other people's
pain because we are human beings at the end of the day and we are taking the energy.
(26:53):
That's why it's important to decompressing and having rituals throughout the
day to go for the power walk, to do some push-ups, to meditate,
to pray, to jump in the cold water, do the things that I do,
you know, because the struggle is real.
And that was something that you couldn't find, right? A counselor,
nobody was trained, nobody never experienced, and which then that's to inspiring you to becoming one.
(27:19):
And how long did it, I mean, did it took you to, to,
I mean, it's just. See, you're very sweet. You said it inspired me to become
a counselor. And that's actually not true.
I was very selfish. I'm like, I'm not getting the help I need because I'm going
counselor to counselor to counselor.
And I was just getting frustrated and angry. I'm like, if they can't tell me
(27:41):
why I'm malfunctioning, I'm going to have to figure out why I'm malfunctioning myself.
So I started going to school. I started doing a pre-med to understand the mind
and the body. Then I found out about this clinical rehabilitation program at
UT Southwestern, because they merged the counseling aspect.
So we're focusing on the mind, and we're also understanding the brain and how
(28:01):
the body and everything is impacted, not just the mental aspect of things.
And that's what I needed. That's what I needed to understand to fix myself.
And it was while I was in that program, fixing myself, not caring about anything
or anybody else, that I had to start counseling other people to finish my graduate degree.
And we started connecting. And the teachers were like, it's really easy for you to connect.
(28:26):
I'm like, yeah, because I can hear them on their level.
I don't know their exact pain, but I know what it's like to feel that small. mall.
So it was easy. And they're the ones who pretty much talked me into doing this.
And I fell in love. I fell in love with helping people not feel small.
(28:46):
Wow. I just want to God bless you, Sophia. So we're going to continue here sharing
more about you descending the stairway to hell, as I like to call it.
And I just wanted to give you like, God bless you, sister, for you to be alive
now and helping your clients and the people that come in your path.
Because I love what you're doing. And I told you, you got some brownie points with me.
(29:07):
And I heard about you that you were doing that, helping people.
Because unfortunately, a lot of people out there in the counseling field and
in the coaching field, they want people to keep coming back.
And you don't want people to relieve those stories. stories
and you are two example that you want to fix them in a
few sessions and get the trauma over with
you remind me a very good friend of mine
(29:30):
a mentor of mine she's like almost 100 years old
she's the godmother of personal development
jean laborde she was pretty much partners with
richard bandler and you know like people legendary
people behind the world of like hypnosis and influence and
and and she's like lives in palo alto and she's
almost 100 years old and uh her and i were good friends and
(29:52):
she always i can fix anybody in 30 seconds or
less she's like tony robbins ain't nobody oh gee
you know and she's like she used to tell me the same way carlos i don't want
to see people suffering and then because she loved how i was like no i want
them to get fixed right now we cannot be wasting time because you are not your
(30:12):
feelings you are not your stories You know,
God has something special for you. We all have a message. We all have a voice.
They're really beautiful people. And I love, and as we continue here,
I love the name that you chose for your counseling services.
(30:33):
92 Reasons. And I'm here on this stage because it's just beautiful.
And I know that you are, like, I know I've been challenging you to step up to be online more often.
Sophia, now I need you to be everywhere on social media and sharing your message and your voice.
And it's an honor that I, you know, for me to be mentoring you and talking about
(30:55):
those things and challenging you to do it. And I'm so proud of you, my friend.
Reasons.com, guys. If you guys want to get to know more about Sophia as we continue
here with her story, I highly recommend you guys follow her on Instagram.
Also, 92 Reasons.
As well. Yep. Just incredible, incredible story.
(31:18):
And it's amazing how you, you know, you chose that name 92 reasons, you know, is that.
Yeah, because I started on the 92nd floor and I had to give myself reasons to
make it out of that building. It was, you know, I got to see my unborn son.
I have so much life left to live. I got to make it to see my parents,
my sisters, you know, what will it do to them if I don't, you know, make it out of here.
(31:39):
And you, we, we do that every day. Oh, I got to get to work. I got to pay this bill.
We talk ourselves into doing things every single day.
And year after year, it's like I started to realize that every reason that I
gave myself to make it down those steps,
every reason that I gave myself every day to make it through all the things
that wanted me to just stop and give up, I realized that I didn't lose hope in myself.
(32:04):
So I had 92 reasons of hope. My husband has 42 reasons. His number is 42.
So I always challenge people to find your reasons.
What are your reasons? And feelings, I can't stand the word feelings a lot of times.
People shut down with feelings. You know how many guys come to counseling and
they're like, I don't want to be here, but I'm supposed to be to counseling.
(32:26):
I'm like, I don't want to be here either.
I don't want somebody counseling me, but let's figure out where you're stuck
and let's get you out of here, you know?
I tell them, stop thinking about feelings. Those are just words.
Feelings is the title of a book, but it's not the story.
I want to hear what you're thinking. I want to hear your story.
Let's focus on that. Forget the feelings.
(32:48):
Yes, amazing. I love that. You know one thing that I always say whenever I'm
speaking around the world, I get called, thank God, just speaking quite a few
masterminds in private groups. And I always tell them,
Sometimes you have to challenge. We have a lot of rewiring to do because we
are, you know, society and the media, they implanted so much crap on us since we were children.
(33:08):
And that's why if you guys think about it, right, if you go back in a timeline,
when did you stop dreaming as a child?
When did you stop, you know, believing in yourself?
When did you allow other people to label you? You know, like I remember being
told this crap when I was a child.
Oh, you know, you're going to, you know, you're hanging out with those kids.
You're selling bread and all your friends. And you don't belong on this side of town.
(33:32):
You're never going to go anywhere, kid. You're from the hood.
You're going to die in the hood. You don't have any fathers or role models.
Like, yeah, watch me. You don't know my story.
I tell people all the time, like, they didn't know you, Sophia,
before this moment. But now you are well-known globally, my friend.
And I tell people all the time, never be afraid to speak on a stage,
on a TV show, on a podcast, and share your story, the shit that hunts you down
(33:56):
because they don't know your story.
I don't care if you have to go after on the stage after Tony Robbins or anybody
that you respect or Gary Vee or Grant Cardone, they don't know your story.
The unknown person in the room has the greatest leverage.
The pressure is on the big timers. I want you guys to know that,
(34:19):
never forget that and share your story. Speak from your heart.
Like right now, we ain't using no teleprompters here.
This is like real. This is raw.
This is live. This is unedited.
Ain't not gonna edit it. This is Sofia and Carlos over here having a conversation.
Because we wanted to impact and inspire millions and millions of lives out there
(34:40):
so that you can share your story and look the dimmer in the eyes and say, I'm coming from you.
Oh, yeah. You feel me? Oh, yeah. You get me fired up.
And Sophia, man, you know, it's so many things that I can think of it from,
you know, and even this image over here is so graphic.
You know, the things that people jumping out of that building and it was just so many of them.
(35:05):
You know talking to some firemen in new
york and as they were down there and then you know i
was hoping to get one of them here on this live but it wasn't possible as
you can you know some of them to this day it's very hard for them to talk about
it you know because they lost so many friends and they kept hearing those pounds
every couple of you know minutes and seconds and they knew what was happening
(35:29):
but it was just silence you know as they were listening to that and i I didn't know.
I heard the sounds and I didn't know until I got home and saw it on the news.
Then it connected. It was like, that was that sound.
That's crazy. As you found your way out, you know, I want to go back here to
(35:51):
the stairways because this is incredible.
When you keep looking and you're going through those doors and eventually you
find an exit, you find a way out. and you found the Miracle Stairway A and the
photo of you touching their stairway.
(36:11):
And I bet you that was a hell of a moment seeing you touching and connecting to their stairway.
But as you're going down their stairway, Sophia, and you're meeting the second group.
To that point, you still had no idea it was an airplane.
When you felt the floor collapsing, in your mind, like, what was going on in
(36:34):
your mind? You think, like, maybe it was a building structure?
Was it a bomb? Like.
No clue. No clue. To be honest, the talk about what was happening didn't start
until I actually made it out of the building, across to the other side,
to my mom's job at 4 New York Plaza.
(36:54):
I made it over there. A whole group came down. They forced me to get into this
elevator to go up to the 18th floor, kicking and screaming because I just came
out of a burning building. Nobody gets into an elevator after that.
As soon as we get up to the 18th floor, I barely make it to her office,
to her cubicle, and everything went black, absolutely black.
(37:16):
And people started screaming, they're bombing everywhere.
They're bombing us. Because as soon as the lights came back on in the building,
we couldn't see the building across from us. So we thought they bombed that building.
So we started running and where did they go? They ran to the elevator.
I can't tell you, you know, that's not my group of people to survive,
but they dragged me kicking and screaming to that elevator to go down.
(37:38):
And I literally, it's like, sorry, this is hard for me because coming out of
the World Trade Center, I heard the elevators exploding, Exploding,
hearing elevators, those are loud explosions.
Like even after the initial impact, you're hearing these explosions.
And the only thing I kept thinking is elevators. Thank God we didn't take the elevators.
(37:59):
And then they're like, let's get in the elevator. Less than a few minutes later.
Wow. Wow. Wow. And when you walk outside that building, did you see some of
the bodies that were jumping or that jumped from the top? Well, I...
(38:19):
I'm goofy. I'm a little bit silly. And we were down on the concourse level.
So we went through the plaza, then to the concourse level. That's where all the shops are.
And we had like this long line of people queuing to get out of one final door
before we can get to the street.
And I can see through all of the huge floor ceiling windows that were broken.
(38:43):
I can see the back of St. Paul's church. And I'm like, I can't stand in this
line. Like I tried standing in the line, but I started getting really anxious.
So I jumped out of one of those windows, you know, onto the debris that was
outside and started trying to climb over the debris so I can get to the sidewalk
instead of waiting in the line.
And I was, I just kept sinking into it and didn't understand why I was sinking
(39:07):
into debris because the debris looks sturdy, right?
And this female police officer came over and grabbed me and she was,
she was yelling, no, no, no.
And pulling me back. And that's when I guess I started being more conscious.
And I saw that I was trying to climb over a pile of people.
And she pulled me back and we walked on the outside of the building a little
(39:31):
bit to the front of the line and then crossed over and had to find my way out from there.
But yes, and it was afterwards I stopped and I was standing next to the cemetery
by St. Paul's church and finally turned around and looked back and it's like, I was, I was in there.
(39:54):
The building's on fire. When I was in the stairwell, it's like you felt the heat. There's a smoke.
But none of that equated to you're in a building that's on fire until I got
out of the building and literally saw the fire.
It's like, wow. From your point of view, being inside that building and the
(40:15):
world is watching from the outside, and none of you guys knew what was happening.
I bet you your mom, you know, which was your mom's first response when she saw you?
Because your mother also have a different view from outside and she's watching
this chaos and she knows you on the 92nd floor.
So, yeah, she from her office, she could see my building.
(40:37):
She used to be on the phone and I would call her from my desk and like, I can see you.
We can't see each other, but still, you know, when you got to her office,
she was there at the office. is I had to stop.
Like I told you from the get-go, it was call your mom because you don't want
her coming to you. When you were getting to her, it'll be lost.
So as soon as I finally got out of the building, I saw this little vacancy sign
(40:58):
and I went down a step and I'm like, I need a phone. I need a phone.
And it looked like a little inn of some sort. And they handed me a phone real
quick and they were like, were you in there? And I'm like, yeah, thanks for the phone.
And I call her and I'm like, mom, I'm coming to you. Don't come to me.
And she's like, Sophie, Sophie is this you is this my Sophie I'm like yes mom
I'm coming to you don't come to me oh my god Sophie where are you mom I'm coming
(41:20):
to you don't come to me hung up and took off running had to like you're showing
all of the pictures of the people standing on the street and.
That it's like you just pushed yourself through 92 flights of stairs and then
I got so lost because so many people were just crowding I couldn't find the
landmarks properly to make it to her so So everything,
(41:41):
I was just, people were holding me like, you're covered in stuff.
You're like, stop, were you in there? Because I was covered in stuff.
And I finally, finally made it to her. Wow. Wow.
And it's like people, they have no idea whenever the police is yelling them,
get out. It's because people are trying to evacuate.
And again, it's just like, you know, it's perception, right?
(42:03):
We might get angry at the moment, right, with them. We're like, no, no, no.
Get your ass out because the people are trying to exit the building.
And, you know, it's like people normally trying to gather.
And speaking of trying to get, you know, I heard about the time about that purse,
you know, that you have to clean it. You know, my purse.
(42:24):
So this was my purse that I had with me that day.
It had my stuff, my wallet, my IDs, my mac and cheese and my umbrella.
And I was young. So after I got home, it's like, you know, after everything,
you know, I finally found my purse. and it was covered in soot, covered in that smell.
And I brought that home with me. So I cleaned it and I tried to clean it.
(42:48):
And for years, it's like I would clean it to get that smell out because it triggered me a lot.
And then Carlos tells me, he goes, you need to bring that purse out,
you know? So I go and I bring the purse out. And what do I see? Look at that.
It doesn't go away. It is still there, all there.
Well, not all there. The majority of it's off, but it's in there.
(43:09):
And I was telling him, you know, for years, I felt like I needed to do that with myself.
I tried to clean myself of my trauma. I tried to get it out so I can be who I was before.
And then it took 20 years because it was earlier this year that I started to
say that, yeah, I like this me. This me who is with the trauma.
(43:31):
I had to make trauma Sophie, pre-Sophie, whatever we ended up being one and
be comfortable with just who I am.
Wow. What an incredible story.
You know, because sometimes, you know, we try to, you know, to do things and
wash things out and certain things doesn't go away.
Like I was saying earlier, they just stay right here in the front of our mind,
(43:53):
which is in our prefrontal cortex for the technical people watching us.
And you know sometimes you know
you just have to we gotta go through it my friend sometimes we
in hell right now a lot of people are suffering right now yeah you
know they're losing loved ones i'm losing loved
ones left and right you know and we can argue about it we can blame you know
(44:14):
vaccines and covid and people and government blah blah blah or we can be the
change we can continue the division and fighting and arguing but i can tell
you one thing from experience and having loved ones that have been taken away from me from murder.
That an eye for an eye can only do one thing, and that is to make the entire world blind.
This moment, we just have to, we got to keep washing that purse,
(44:38):
we got to keep washing that shirt and those memories, and just keep going,
because if you're going through hell, that's, you don't want to go back. There's only one way.
That's why you guys see me, you know, riding on my bicycle on the stages around
the world, because life is like riding a bicycle.
There's only one way and that way is forward.
And speaking of going forward, Sofia.
(45:01):
When did you, where were you exactly when the first building started collapsing?
When the first building collapsed, I was in my mom's office.
That's when I just got to the 18th floor in her building.
And we thought that they were bombing everywhere else.
And that was at 9.59 a.m. The school tower started going down after 56 minutes of burning.
(45:24):
So it took you about, it took about 56 minutes to get from your mom,
Sign a second to your mom.
And then what happened from there? What was that? We get to my mom's office.
What was that? Did you know there was the building collapsing?
No, no. So when we get out of my mom's office to get out of the building,
(45:45):
because we thought they were going to bomb that building next, just happened.
My dad was just getting ready to go into my mom's office.
He got the very last train from Midtown to downtown so he could meet up with
us. and we went to the back of my mom's building so we can get on the ramp to
get to the Brooklyn Bridge to get out of Manhattan.
That was pretty much, everybody was trying to get out of Manhattan.
(46:07):
And as soon as we get, there's like this, the ramp goes up and then it makes
like this corner to get onto the Brooklyn Bridge.
And from that elevated corner, you could look back and see the city and see
where the buildings are.
And I'm telling my mom, I'm like, mom, my building's not there.
And she's like, that's stupid. A whole building can't disappear.
And I'm like, mom, my building's not there. And she's like, stop it.
(46:30):
We got to get out of here. Mom, look, there's only one. My building is gone.
And then she finally turned around. Her and my dad turned around to look.
And as we're looking, so I can explain, my building is gone.
We start seeing tower one falling.
And it was just incomprehensible that you're looking at a building just going
(46:50):
to dust and then falling.
After what seemed like forever, but it was actually a few seconds,
you see this dust coming towards us and I start to run.
And my mom grabbed my hair and she's like, no, where are you going?
And I'm like, we got to get out of here. It's coming. We got to get out of here.
And she's like, well, I can't run. I'm like, well, take your shoes off.
Cause my mom can't do anything without six inch heels.
(47:12):
And she's like, I can't run without my shoes. Take your shoes off mom.
And she grabs as my hair. And she's like, no, don't leave us.
So we walked, we walked because she was in six inch heels across the Brooklyn
bridge through every ounce of that dust.
I don't know how it felt like forever, but as soon as we could see Brooklyn,
(47:34):
that's when it started to clear.
What you was on this bridge right here, right? Yeah. Wow.
Holy Jesus. So you are watching as you are outside you watching the whole thing
collapsing in front of your eyes and,
and it's i can you know it's just like crazy you
know i mean and you know just like i showed you guys earlier you know nj over
(47:57):
here you know documenting you know this and this thing plays in my head one
this is as close as we can get to the base of the world trade center you can
see the The firemen assembled here, the police officers, FBI agents.
And you can see the two towers, huge explosion now raining debris on all of
us. We better get out of the way.
(48:18):
This thing is like, it plays in my head, you know, for this last 20 years.
Because by being there two days before, you know, it's just crazy.
When I look at this and I go back and I can imagine you being there at that
moment in your mommy's office, having no idea what it is until you walk down.
And for you guys that don't know the exact timelines, the South Tower collapsed at 9.59 a.m.
(48:43):
Sophia's inside your mom's office, 56 minutes after burning.
So a little, you know, it hits a 9.03, 9.59 it comes down.
And then at 10.28 a.m., the North Tower collapsed and you happens to be looking at it from outside.
On the Brooklyn Bridge. And your mom can now run. Accentuous.
(49:07):
Wow. Wow. So you lived through this. You survived this.
I mean, did you get angry? Like, what did you feel about all this?
As the time passes, walk us through that. So you hit the nail on the head when
you talk about, when you experience trauma, talk about it.
(49:29):
Because, you know, from the Caribbean, we don't go to counseling,
you know, we don't talk about it. You just suck it up and you move on, right?
Everybody has some type of trauma. So it was like, this is not new,
especially in New York. We were all traumatized in New York.
To some extent, the entire world was traumatized with this.
So I started yelling at God by myself,
(49:51):
like, help me understand, help me understand why I had to be there,
you know, and it was years of me having these angry prayers,
but it was still prayer in some form, trying to understand.
And I never got an answer until my cousin called me this year saying,
(50:13):
Sophie, you deal with PTSD.
You've thought about wanting to kill yourself several times.
I'm in that spot right now and I need your help. And we talked for like two
and a half hours until he was too tired and he said, thanks,
I needed that. And then he texted me the next day and was like, thank you.
(50:34):
And I text him back. And I said, you know, now I understand why I had to go
through what I went through.
And if it was just to help you not feel the way you feel right now,
and for you to not give up, I'll do it all over again. in.
So everybody, every client that comes to me, suicidal, not suicidal,
(50:56):
just frustrated and angry with life.
This is why I had to go through what I had to go through.
So I can be not in their shoes, but understand how it feels to be that low and
how it feels to want to give up almost every day, but find the strength to keep going.
So they don't have to explain it to me. All we have to do is to start to figure
(51:19):
out where to rebuild and how to rebuild.
That's why, that's the type of relationship I try to have with everyone.
You don't have to be a client to know that I'm here to help.
Amen, sister. Amen. Wow. I'm just so grateful that we had the honor to spend
this hour here and talk about this. I know it wasn't easy.
(51:39):
I know that there's a lot of emotions that are going through us right now.
You know, you for experiencing this horrific event.
You know, I was there two days before and for 15 years I couldn't go back to
New York as I told you guys earlier and I lost a few people this week.
So it's a very difficult show to do, ladies and gentlemen, but I know that somebody
out there needed to hear this today.
(52:01):
I know there's somebody there right now and I pray for you if you are going
through some trauma, if you've ever been abused or tortured or lost a loved
ones or been betrayed by somebody or somebody lied to you or cheated on you.
I just wanted you to know that.
To keep it going. I wanted you to know that that's the moment that,
you know, throughout in the midst of all the chaos that went down,
(52:23):
as you guys can see here, we were together. We were holding each other's hands.
There was unity. At that moment in time, 20 years ago, we didn't worry about
who we voted for, which religion we were, whether we had whatever vaccine was
on back then in those days. None of that matters, ladies and gentlemen.
(52:44):
We came together. That's what we are known for in the United States of America.
It's a unity. It's united.
Divided, we cannot conquer anything. We learned that from history.
It's about us coming together. Enough division.
Enough arguing. All this stuff is not going to take us anyone.
If you're doing it for entertainment purposes, keep it there.
(53:07):
Don't take it into your homes. Break it to your friends.
Don't take it. because this shit will hunt you down as they hunt Sophia for
almost 20 years, as they hunted me for almost 15.
They hunted thousands and thousands of lives.
They are watching this. They were there in that building, the loved ones, their family members.
(53:31):
Unfortunately, it wasn't that many that survived, but the ones that did,
they are sharing their stories.
They are inspiring and impacting others because that's what we need.
We need the world to come together so that we can be the change,
as Gandhi used to say, that we want to see in others.
For the ones that love reading the Bible, my favorite quote from God, let there be light.
(53:55):
Let's all of us be the lights that we want to see in others around the world.
It's an honor to have you here, my friend. And the question that I ask all my
guests that come on this show, Sophia, before we depart from this special,
incredible episode, is 100 years from now, you are 125.
(54:17):
And it's your eulogy. And they are going to read it.
And everybody's going to be, some people are going to be very happy.
They're going to be celebrating because they're going to be thinking about the
amazing things that you did.
A few others will have a few tears in their eyes.
And they're going to read that eulogy of yours, and they're going to say,
Sophia Cannon was an incredible woman.
(54:39):
She inspired millions and millions of lives because she faced the devil in the eyes.
And she went on counseling them and inspiring them and helping so many others
around the world, from Trinidad to the United States and globally.
And they're going to say, Sophia Cannon was dot, dot, dot.
(55:00):
In Sophia Cannon's own words, who Sophia Cannon was? Wow.
She was just like everybody else. I am just like you, not any different.
And I found a way to keep hoping myself and keep my faith.
And that's all I want to inspire others to do, to realize that they're no different
(55:24):
from anybody else who survives at everything and anything every day.
And I want everybody to start finding faith in themselves, finding hope in themselves
and trusting themselves.
If you're hurt, if you're sad, it's for a reason, trust that.
And if you're happy, trust that also, just be.
We are all the same and we're all in this together. So Sophia Cannon inspired
(55:47):
people to trust themselves, find faith and hope in themselves.
Music.
(00:07):
In the planet.
When a group of 19 Al Qaeda members hijacked four airplanes,
and two of those planes hit the World Trade Center.
And ladies and gentlemen, on today's episode.
(00:29):
Music.
I bring you guys an incredible story of a survivor that was inside that building
that never shared her story.
Some of you may can relate where horrific things happened to us and we holding
(00:50):
on to those things for a very, very long time.
I can relate to it. I bet you also can.
In this incredible story, she will tell us from her point of view being inside
that building, 18 years old and pregnant, when the floor collapsed underneath her.
(01:17):
Never shared before on any media, on any TV station.
We have the honor to bring you guys here on the stage.
I'm Sophia Galen. What's up, Sophia? How are you, my friend?
I'm good. How are you guys?
We are doing amazing. We are doing amazing. Such an honor to have you here with us today.
(01:41):
And, you know, I know you and I have been talking and you and I were just discussing
here before this live that, you know, another colleague who's a reporter, N.J.
Burkett, was in front of the tower that day. and he himself never could share
the story for it took him 19 years and he could never share that story,
(02:03):
hunt him down. And I'll play the scene.
He's one of the very few reporters that happens to be documenting in front of
the building when this horrific scene happened.
This is as close as we can get to the base of the World Trade Center.
You can see the firemen assembled here, the police officers, FBI agents,
and you can see the two towers, huge explosion now
(02:25):
raining debris on all of us you know just very very
you know crazy scene to report and i
was looking at a segment about n and j that
you know he couldn't share it since that happened that
he couldn't talk about it you know for 19 years before he
talked about it a documentary and i was saying it's funny how you know something
(02:47):
similar you know happened to you you know 20 years And we want to give some
credit to AP News for some of the top 20 most incredible photos that documented this horrific event.
And I'll be playing them throughout the show for you guys that are watching
live here with us on the Carlos Inspire show, where we are documenting incredible
(03:08):
stories of inspiration, teaching business and branding.
So the ones who doesn't have the means around the world can learn from others,
experience and impact their lives.
We are documenting on the Carlos Inspire show for many, many years,
interviewing from startups to celebrities and billionaires and every person in between.
(03:29):
That you have a voice. You have a message. Your voice matters. Your message matters.
This show is about bringing people together and not dividing us.
And Sofia, I wanted to, you know, before we go into this, I wanted to tell us why now?
Why 20 years later you decided, you know, to share this story with the world
(03:51):
before we go into the details of you being inside that building?
Honestly, it's easy for me to talk about the experience because I was so detached
from it since this happened.
So I can talk to people about it face to face.
But when everybody tried to push me, like, write a book, tell your story,
(04:13):
you have an incredible story.
Tell people about it. It was about me and my story.
But since everything has happened with the pandemic, it's no longer my story
because this is now our story of how I was able to work through my trauma.
And right now, when the entire world is traumatized, it's no longer my story to keep for myself.
(04:40):
This time, it's time for me to tell other people my story so they can learn from it.
That's why it's time. Wow. And I'm so honored to have you here sharing that with us.
And it's funny because you and I were talking the other day on Instagram and
(05:01):
you brought up a great point. And I ask you how many people survived,
winning, winning, true, how many died.
There's plenty of stories out there and documentaries that talk about the nearly
3,000 lives that were lost that day.
And I was sharing with you a story of my own two days before the World Trade Center.
(05:24):
I'm holding on here to my hand and to a photo that I took from the State of Liberty.
And it's the World Trade Center. Two days before, on 9-9-2001,
I went to visit the State of Liberty and the World Trade Center.
The Brazilian independence is on September 7th. So every year,
you know, a whole bunch of Brazilian people gather in New York. And we like to party.
(05:48):
And others in our New York and friends have a lot of moral friends and,
you know, entrepreneurs, friends and clients of mine that lives in New York.
And we go there every year. And you know what's funny?
Since 2001, I couldn't go back to New York for 15 years.
I couldn't go back. Even all the training that I have, I just lost a lot of friends.
(06:09):
And I couldn't go back there either. I went back because my publisher forced
me to go there to release my book and to speak for a large audience.
And even though I didn't want it to do it, I said, could you pick any other city?
And it's funny now how even I can think about that because it doesn't matter the level of training.
Once we put something in our mind, and if that thing is right there in the front
(06:31):
of your prefrontal cortex, it's there.
Everywhere you look, all the things that happen to us. But I can tell you something,
guys, you are not your feelings.
A lot of us, they go through a lot of difficult things in life.
Some stories are more horrific than others.
Like Sophia being young and pregnant inside that building.
Like when I was a little boy that lost a lot of loved ones and seeing people
(06:54):
being murdered or being shot in the head nearby me on the streets.
I lost my father in a horrible car explosion accident.
My stepfather that was murdered. I was abused mentally and physically.
And all of us go through things differently. Some of us is just more chaotic
than others, but sometimes those things, they hunt us down.
(07:17):
If we don't talk about it, if we don't share it, I never like to share it for
many times. And that shit hunt me down.
Whether it was alcohol, drugs, the decisions that we make.
And that's why I love sharing stories and bringing amazing stories like Sophia
here. So that I can inspire.
If we can inspire one person, one children that we can save in the barrios,
(07:40):
in the favelas, in the hoods, around the world. If we can just save one.
As I like to say, save one, win one.
It's all worth it in the end. And it's crazy. And I keep this photo, Sofia, in my studio.
You know, it gets me the chills when I think about it. I tell my daughter two days before.
And if you guys are into numbers, my wife is also born on that day.
(08:01):
My grandma that was married for 60 plus years with my grandpa also died that day.
My uncle died that day, yesterday. You know, it's all how you look at it.
But, you know, I choose to focus on what is positive, not what is negative. I focus on the smiles.
I focus on the day before 9-11. I focus on the day before the abuse.
(08:25):
I focus on the day before the murders.
And because what is wrong is always available, ladies and gentlemen. So what is right?
We have to make a decision, draw a line in the sand that enough is enough.
And this is a moment where we come together and stop fighting because whether
your loved one was vaccinated or not or who they voted for, none of these people in power care about us.
(08:49):
It's about all of us coming together once and for all and stop with the whining
and moaning and complaining about things outside our control.
The only thing that we can control is right now, this very moment.
And Sophia, I wanted you to walk me through, You know, I just get fired up.
I got a lot of emotions here right now.
I lost two uncles in the last seven days, and my mom is not doing so well.
(09:11):
So it's very difficult for me to do this show here today.
But I know that a life will be saved out of there today.
I know that every time we do this show and televise around the world,
a percentage of people watching may be suicidal and going through a tremendous amount of difficulty.
And I wish that when I was going through that myself, somebody would spoken
life into me that was also going through a whole lot of things.
(09:35):
And that's why I do what I do. Some of my friends, they say,
I don't know how you do this, Carlos.
I was, you know, interviewed a few times this past couple of days,
and they just don't know how I have the ability to share it.
Because I made a promise a long time ago to a few friends that died.
I'll share the promise towards the end. But Sophia, I want you to walk me through that day.
It was a beautiful Tuesday in New York, 20 years ago this morning.
(10:00):
Yeah, absolutely beautiful. Beautiful. And now, you know, so tell me,
you know, so you walk in the morning, your mom, you know, tell us your mother's
telling you, come on, you're going to get to work early.
Walk us through that morning. I'm from the Caribbean, so I'm always late.
I'm a hard worker, but I'm always late. That morning, we actually made sure
(10:22):
we checked to make sure the iron was off. Everything was good at home.
So we didn't have to run back and we made it to the bus on time. We made it to the train.
We made it to the bus. We made, we made everything on time.
And my mom got off on the Whitehall stop.
And just before she got off the train that morning, she's like,
Hey, you should be getting to your desk at 845.
(10:43):
You're early today. I'm like, yeah, 845.
So I took the train after she got off.
And I always got off on the Cortland exit because getting off on the Cortland
exit, I had to cross the street.
And mind you, I am horrible at crossing the street.
Can't tell you how many New York City buses I came face to face with in my life.
(11:04):
But crossing the street to go across the plaza just to see the grandeur of those
buildings every morning that I got to gave me life.
That it was magnificent and I love that view.
And as I was crossing that morning, the farmer's market was set up and I carried
mac and cheese with me for lunch.
(11:24):
And the first thing I thought is, okay, no mac and cheese for lunch.
We're going to go down to the farmer's market and get something fresh,
get some of that hot apple cider donuts.
And walked into the building, go down the stairs.
And the best thing is that Ben and Jerry's cart right outside the entrance to
the elevator banks that I had to go into to World Trade Center,
(11:45):
and then stand in line to get my ID.
Ever since I was still new there in
the building, every morning as a temp worker, I would have to get an ID.
And that's why the ID that, you know, Carlos will show you guys in a few,
has my picture that morning.
They snapped a picture of me, put the floor that I was going on,
the 92nd floor to World Trade Center, the company that I was with, Aon, and the date.
(12:11):
Has the date and got my ID, turned around, got in the express elevators to go up to the 78th floor.
And then from the 78th floor, I got on the local elevator to go up to the 92nd floor.
And it was while I was in that local elevator going up to the 92nd floor,
I started hearing just screaming loud, blood-curling screams.
(12:35):
And it was just me in the elevator by myself. And the first thing I can think,
it's like, geez, those guys who are fixing the elevators all week last week, what are they doing?
And as soon as I got off the elevator, turned left, and it was just a shot,
the view next to the receptionist desk of one World Trade center and just paper flying from it.
(12:57):
And I just stood there like there in headlights.
I couldn't think, I couldn't move. I just stood there looking at the paper because
just the night before, after I left work,
I saw a piece of paper on the plaza, one New York plaza, and just a blank sheet
of eight and a half by 11 piece of white paper just got up and started drifting up and up and going up.
(13:19):
And I was looking at it going up across the building, the front facade of the building.
And I kept looking while I was walking and almost fell in the subway station
from just looking at a piece of paper.
So when I get into the towers on that morning and all I see is paper drifting,
it's like, I saw this yesterday and it stopped me.
The thing that woke me up was my boss, Patrice.
(13:43):
She was grabbing me at my shoulders, yelling, Sophie, Sophie.
And when I finally came through, she's like, Sophie, you got to get out of here.
That's when I noticed she had everybody lined up going down the stairs already.
And she pushed me in the line and she's like, Sophie, go, go with Brian.
And then I saw her heading back to the floor. And I'm like, where are you going, Patrice?
And she was like, she's the fire marshal for the floor. So since I was there,
(14:05):
she had to go and make sure everybody was off the floor Because if I was coming
up, more people could be coming up on the other side. So she went back.
And Patrice never made it out of the building.
I saw her face plastered on the news the next morning while we were watching the news.
Wow. Wow. That's crazy. You know, yeah.
(14:28):
It's just amazing. You know, I pray and I want to, I think my condolence to
all the lives of the families that are watching us now.
That lost a loved one or a friend in that building, all the city of New Yorkers,
the fire department, the police department, every single soul and body that
went there inside that building that knew.
And some of them knew, man, the fire department, that they were never going
(14:50):
to walk out of that building.
And did you, like, did you knew, like, that the world was changing outside at
that moment? No. Not Sophia?
No. In your mind, it was just like, I'm assuming, you know, I heard that you
guys went through a few fire drills a few times a year where you guys had to
(15:11):
go down some of the, you know, but I mean, what was going on in your mind?
You had no idea what was happening outside.
I was there for one month and I had a week off in between that one month.
So I was not trained. I was not prepared. Actually, there was a lady while we
were evacuating. there was a lady who was heavy set and a lot older and she couldn't make it down.
(15:36):
So she stopped and I stopped with her to make sure she was okay.
And she's the one who said, I did this back in 1993 and they made me walk all
the way down and then told me it was okay to go back up. And I'm like,
what are you talking about?
And she's the one who told me for the very first time in my life that they were bombed back in 1993.
And this was after we already got hit by the plane in the building. And I was like.
(16:02):
That was the only time it hit me that this could be something serious.
At first, it was just what's going on. Like, I guess my innocence kept me sane for the majority of it.
Wow. I mean, you were 18 years old and you are pregnant.
And now you're walking down through these setaways.
And for you guys that don't know the exact numbers and the timelines, let's start.
(16:27):
We're going to, I want to bring you guys into that scene right now.
And I love Sophia for, you know, for telling us and being strong because this
is not something easy to talk about.
And at 8.46 in the morning on that Tuesday, the first airplane,
United Airlines flight 175 hit the South Tower.
(16:50):
An unknown number of people at that moment. Nobody knew what was going on.
And so as you guys can think of it, Sophia had to be in her desk at 8.45.
At 8 46 that thing hit
and she's there in her desk now she's being told to
walk back down to the staircase from the 92nd floor and as you guys know not
(17:11):
that many people survived above the the crashing sites and 903 the south tower attack happens.
And you are walking down the staircase and walk us through.
You're walking down and you hear a loud noise and the floor collapse underneath you.
(17:32):
Walk us through that, you know, as you're walking down to the staircase.
It's you and a whole bunch of colleagues and it's a whole bunch of people.
And I bet you none of you guys know what's happening.
So walk us through that and you hear that loud noise. And then I want to get
into the Miracle Stairway.
Yeah. So at 9.03, I was on the 82nd floor because I kept stopping.
(17:59):
I met this lady named Rhonda in the stairwell.
And she was like, we have to stop and call your mom to tell her to not come
to the site where we are for her to stay where she is and for me to go get her.
So we kept stopping on each floor to try and get a phone, but the lines for
the phones were really long.
So after stopping on several floors, she was like, let's just keep going down.
So when we got to the 82nd floor, that's when the plane hit the building.
(18:25):
At the time, I didn't know a plane hit the building.
All I know is that I'm going down one set of stairs.
Next thing you know, there's this loud noise. It all happened at the exact same time.
Noise. And I see the wall in front of me because I was getting ready to turn
onto the platform and the door was to the right.
And I see the crack in the wall. The wall starts to crack.
(18:48):
And then I just start feeling air under my feet.
And I remember just jumping onto the floor and sorry, jumped onto the floor.
I think I landed and hit my knees and my chest, just trying to make it onto the open doorway.
And then I got up and just started running down this hall.
(19:11):
And that's when I saw it was like this, like a little archway
and there were two women and a guy and
this guy was crunched down on the floor holding his head and
the two women were bracing almost like earthquake and
somebody was yelling earthquake and like just bracing and stuff was just crumbling
you could literally the windows were cracked open sorry not cracked there was
(19:35):
no window there was no glass in the windows And the whole building inside was just crumbling.
And the only, there was light, but it was dark.
And the light from the fire, the emergency, the red light just kept flashing, flashing, flashing.
And people were yelling, we're going to die. And I don't know why.
(19:59):
I guess, again, my innocence, I started yelling, no, I'm not going to die.
You know, God never, I never had to study for a test.
God loves me. You know, I'm going to make this, I'm going to make this happen.
I haven't seen my son yet. And I just started yelling. I don't even know what
having a study for a test has to do with anything, but I knew God had my back that day.
And I started looking for another stair to go down. And I remember running down
(20:22):
this hall and just opening any door that I can find.
And then I finally found another set of stairs that wasn't damaged.
And I ran back and I'm like, guys, there's another stairs. There's another stairs.
And everybody was just yelling. They just kept yelling. They're going to die.
And I was angry. And I'm like, there's another stair. Let's go.
And they weren't listening to me. They weren't coming. So I went by myself,
(20:45):
got in the stairs and started going down again.
And that's when I met a new group of people going down.
Wow. Wow. It's just incredible. And amen.
I'm over here, you know, there's so many feelings and I can feel you and I can, I'm very intuitive.
God's always whispers into my ears.
(21:07):
And, you know, as I always preach around the world when I speak on stage,
you know, God will never put us through something if he doesn't think we can handle it, you know.
Oh, man. Somebody drop an amen right now. They are listening to us live. Thank you.
Because, you know, and I want to talk about, just to give you guys watching
us here now, for you guys that are watching us on video, I'm actually putting
(21:30):
a series of images on the screen for you guys that are listening.
I highly recommend you guys also watch the replay later.
Because I'm showing you guys over here the Miracle Stairway.
Because I really want to bring you guys into that scene with us in that moment.
Like I told you, this has never been shared before.
And I'm giving you guys a different view over here with Sophia and I'm so happy
that she's agreeing to play with us here full out and talk about it because.
(21:54):
This helps us talk about it because it's going to inspire others out there not to hold back.
There is always another way if you don't quit. There is always another route if you don't give up.
When opportunities doesn't knock, then you go out there and you build a damn door.
Yeah. And as this floor collapsed, ladies and gentlemen, Sophia,
Pat, to continue on descending on the way out of that building, it's no longer there.
(22:20):
Some of you guys right now at home listening to us, you might not think.
It's the end. Well, let me tell you something.
At the end, everything is going to be okay.
And if it's not okay, it's not the end. Come on, Brother Carlos.
At the end, everything is going to be okay.
(22:42):
And if it's not okay, ladies and gentlemen, it's not the end.
And as you guys can see over here on the image, that's three stairways,
A, B, and C, located on the 82nd floor, which Sophia happens to be 18 years old and pregnant.
Before she was married, her name was Sophia A. Thomas.
(23:04):
So for you guys wondering right now, it's Sophia Cannon.
And this young lady walking down, her stairways collapsed underneath her,
and she figured her way out.
And here's something that is incredible that Sophia and I were discussing that
we never thought of this before.
All these years that the things that
(23:25):
the stories and the things that fermented us and some
of our friends and family members and here's
something incredible they were on the
81st floor and 82nd floor
there were 12 you know what do they call the 12 24 ton elevator machines so
like this huge machines and it's 12 of them as you guys know i like to talk
(23:49):
about the 12 apostles slash 12 Avengers
for my religious and non-religious brothers and sisters out there.
And because of this 12 big machines with the impact of the airplane coming through
the flight path, it pushes it, those 12 machines.
(24:11):
In the angle that it protect.
The only stairway that would allow Sophia and her friends James,
to come down that building now look
how crazy this is it destroyed all stairway
b stairway c and it pushed those
machine those huge machines 12 of them on their stairway that sofia was blessed
(24:37):
to found because on the other doors that you were looking for you couldn't open
them right when you you opened the door it was just nothing there right and
that must be a hell of a feeling I mean,
as you're going through that and your friends and it's like,
do you remember how many people were in your group coming down for their.
Carlos, in 2015, when I met my, my husband and I told him, you know,
(25:02):
like, Hey, just need you to know what you get it into.
I've got post PTSD and this is, this is why this is what happened.
He, he was shocked and he went and he started doing research to try and understand
the gravity of what I experienced before getting into this relationship.
And he comes back one day and he goes, did you know that it's only about 15
(25:22):
or 16 people who survived around the area that you were on because it got hit
so hard on those floors? Like, what are you talking about?
There was like a lot of people in the stairwell around me. There were lots of
people in the stairwell. He goes, yeah, but you told me that the stairs fell
from under your feet and you had to jump on and you go.
And I'm like, yeah, that's what happened. He goes, well, what happened to the
(25:43):
people that were next to you?
Carlos, we're in a park in a public area and I dirty cried with snot everywhere
and it hit me like a ton of bricks hit me like all of those years in my head.
It was, oh, we're in this because at no point in time, it was me going to survive.
It was, we are in this, we're getting out of this building.
(26:07):
So it wasn't until 2015 that I realized that if there was nobody jumping onto
that floor with me, that hurt.
Wow wow man that's crazy
you know that that you know i always talk about the stairway to
heaven from led zeppelin and now it's
like it's the stairway to hell i mean that's going on in you guys mind and going
(26:30):
down and and you know and it's crazy because one thing that you and i talk about
is that it was no counselors around that time u.s none of us you know i mean
i mentor and train and many counselors and therapists around the world.
And I know how much trauma you guys take on a daily basis from other people's
pain because we are human beings at the end of the day and we are taking the energy.
(26:53):
That's why it's important to decompressing and having rituals throughout the
day to go for the power walk, to do some push-ups, to meditate,
to pray, to jump in the cold water, do the things that I do,
you know, because the struggle is real.
And that was something that you couldn't find, right? A counselor,
nobody was trained, nobody never experienced, and which then that's to inspiring you to becoming one.
(27:19):
And how long did it, I mean, did it took you to, to,
I mean, it's just. See, you're very sweet. You said it inspired me to become
a counselor. And that's actually not true.
I was very selfish. I'm like, I'm not getting the help I need because I'm going
counselor to counselor to counselor.
And I was just getting frustrated and angry. I'm like, if they can't tell me
(27:41):
why I'm malfunctioning, I'm going to have to figure out why I'm malfunctioning myself.
So I started going to school. I started doing a pre-med to understand the mind
and the body. Then I found out about this clinical rehabilitation program at
UT Southwestern, because they merged the counseling aspect.
So we're focusing on the mind, and we're also understanding the brain and how
(28:01):
the body and everything is impacted, not just the mental aspect of things.
And that's what I needed. That's what I needed to understand to fix myself.
And it was while I was in that program, fixing myself, not caring about anything
or anybody else, that I had to start counseling other people to finish my graduate degree.
And we started connecting. And the teachers were like, it's really easy for you to connect.
(28:26):
I'm like, yeah, because I can hear them on their level.
I don't know their exact pain, but I know what it's like to feel that small. mall.
So it was easy. And they're the ones who pretty much talked me into doing this.
And I fell in love. I fell in love with helping people not feel small.
(28:46):
Wow. I just want to God bless you, Sophia. So we're going to continue here sharing
more about you descending the stairway to hell, as I like to call it.
And I just wanted to give you like, God bless you, sister, for you to be alive
now and helping your clients and the people that come in your path.
Because I love what you're doing. And I told you, you got some brownie points with me.
(29:07):
And I heard about you that you were doing that, helping people.
Because unfortunately, a lot of people out there in the counseling field and
in the coaching field, they want people to keep coming back.
And you don't want people to relieve those stories. stories
and you are two example that you want to fix them in a
few sessions and get the trauma over with
you remind me a very good friend of mine
(29:30):
a mentor of mine she's like almost 100 years old
she's the godmother of personal development
jean laborde she was pretty much partners with
richard bandler and you know like people legendary
people behind the world of like hypnosis and influence and
and and she's like lives in palo alto and she's
almost 100 years old and uh her and i were good friends and
(29:52):
she always i can fix anybody in 30 seconds or
less she's like tony robbins ain't nobody oh gee
you know and she's like she used to tell me the same way carlos i don't want
to see people suffering and then because she loved how i was like no i want
them to get fixed right now we cannot be wasting time because you are not your
(30:12):
feelings you are not your stories You know,
God has something special for you. We all have a message. We all have a voice.
They're really beautiful people. And I love, and as we continue here,
I love the name that you chose for your counseling services.
(30:33):
92 Reasons. And I'm here on this stage because it's just beautiful.
And I know that you are, like, I know I've been challenging you to step up to be online more often.
Sophia, now I need you to be everywhere on social media and sharing your message and your voice.
And it's an honor that I, you know, for me to be mentoring you and talking about
(30:55):
those things and challenging you to do it. And I'm so proud of you, my friend.
Reasons.com, guys. If you guys want to get to know more about Sophia as we continue
here with her story, I highly recommend you guys follow her on Instagram.
Also, 92 Reasons.
As well. Yep. Just incredible, incredible story.
(31:18):
And it's amazing how you, you know, you chose that name 92 reasons, you know, is that.
Yeah, because I started on the 92nd floor and I had to give myself reasons to
make it out of that building. It was, you know, I got to see my unborn son.
I have so much life left to live. I got to make it to see my parents,
my sisters, you know, what will it do to them if I don't, you know, make it out of here.
(31:39):
And you, we, we do that every day. Oh, I got to get to work. I got to pay this bill.
We talk ourselves into doing things every single day.
And year after year, it's like I started to realize that every reason that I
gave myself to make it down those steps,
every reason that I gave myself every day to make it through all the things
that wanted me to just stop and give up, I realized that I didn't lose hope in myself.
(32:04):
So I had 92 reasons of hope. My husband has 42 reasons. His number is 42.
So I always challenge people to find your reasons.
What are your reasons? And feelings, I can't stand the word feelings a lot of times.
People shut down with feelings. You know how many guys come to counseling and
they're like, I don't want to be here, but I'm supposed to be to counseling.
(32:26):
I'm like, I don't want to be here either.
I don't want somebody counseling me, but let's figure out where you're stuck
and let's get you out of here, you know?
I tell them, stop thinking about feelings. Those are just words.
Feelings is the title of a book, but it's not the story.
I want to hear what you're thinking. I want to hear your story.
Let's focus on that. Forget the feelings.
(32:48):
Yes, amazing. I love that. You know one thing that I always say whenever I'm
speaking around the world, I get called, thank God, just speaking quite a few
masterminds in private groups. And I always tell them,
Sometimes you have to challenge. We have a lot of rewiring to do because we
are, you know, society and the media, they implanted so much crap on us since we were children.
(33:08):
And that's why if you guys think about it, right, if you go back in a timeline,
when did you stop dreaming as a child?
When did you stop, you know, believing in yourself?
When did you allow other people to label you? You know, like I remember being
told this crap when I was a child.
Oh, you know, you're going to, you know, you're hanging out with those kids.
You're selling bread and all your friends. And you don't belong on this side of town.
(33:32):
You're never going to go anywhere, kid. You're from the hood.
You're going to die in the hood. You don't have any fathers or role models.
Like, yeah, watch me. You don't know my story.
I tell people all the time, like, they didn't know you, Sophia,
before this moment. But now you are well-known globally, my friend.
And I tell people all the time, never be afraid to speak on a stage,
on a TV show, on a podcast, and share your story, the shit that hunts you down
(33:56):
because they don't know your story.
I don't care if you have to go after on the stage after Tony Robbins or anybody
that you respect or Gary Vee or Grant Cardone, they don't know your story.
The unknown person in the room has the greatest leverage.
The pressure is on the big timers. I want you guys to know that,
(34:19):
never forget that and share your story. Speak from your heart.
Like right now, we ain't using no teleprompters here.
This is like real. This is raw.
This is live. This is unedited.
Ain't not gonna edit it. This is Sofia and Carlos over here having a conversation.
Because we wanted to impact and inspire millions and millions of lives out there
(34:40):
so that you can share your story and look the dimmer in the eyes and say, I'm coming from you.
Oh, yeah. You feel me? Oh, yeah. You get me fired up.
And Sophia, man, you know, it's so many things that I can think of it from,
you know, and even this image over here is so graphic.
You know, the things that people jumping out of that building and it was just so many of them.
(35:05):
You know talking to some firemen in new
york and as they were down there and then you know i
was hoping to get one of them here on this live but it wasn't possible as
you can you know some of them to this day it's very hard for them to talk about
it you know because they lost so many friends and they kept hearing those pounds
every couple of you know minutes and seconds and they knew what was happening
(35:29):
but it was just silence you know as they were listening to that and i I didn't know.
I heard the sounds and I didn't know until I got home and saw it on the news.
Then it connected. It was like, that was that sound.
That's crazy. As you found your way out, you know, I want to go back here to
(35:51):
the stairways because this is incredible.
When you keep looking and you're going through those doors and eventually you
find an exit, you find a way out. and you found the Miracle Stairway A and the
photo of you touching their stairway.
(36:11):
And I bet you that was a hell of a moment seeing you touching and connecting to their stairway.
But as you're going down their stairway, Sophia, and you're meeting the second group.
To that point, you still had no idea it was an airplane.
When you felt the floor collapsing, in your mind, like, what was going on in
(36:34):
your mind? You think, like, maybe it was a building structure?
Was it a bomb? Like.
No clue. No clue. To be honest, the talk about what was happening didn't start
until I actually made it out of the building, across to the other side,
to my mom's job at 4 New York Plaza.
(36:54):
I made it over there. A whole group came down. They forced me to get into this
elevator to go up to the 18th floor, kicking and screaming because I just came
out of a burning building. Nobody gets into an elevator after that.
As soon as we get up to the 18th floor, I barely make it to her office,
to her cubicle, and everything went black, absolutely black.
(37:16):
And people started screaming, they're bombing everywhere.
They're bombing us. Because as soon as the lights came back on in the building,
we couldn't see the building across from us. So we thought they bombed that building.
So we started running and where did they go? They ran to the elevator.
I can't tell you, you know, that's not my group of people to survive,
but they dragged me kicking and screaming to that elevator to go down.
(37:38):
And I literally, it's like, sorry, this is hard for me because coming out of
the World Trade Center, I heard the elevators exploding, Exploding,
hearing elevators, those are loud explosions.
Like even after the initial impact, you're hearing these explosions.
And the only thing I kept thinking is elevators. Thank God we didn't take the elevators.
(37:59):
And then they're like, let's get in the elevator. Less than a few minutes later.
Wow. Wow. Wow. And when you walk outside that building, did you see some of
the bodies that were jumping or that jumped from the top? Well, I...
(38:19):
I'm goofy. I'm a little bit silly. And we were down on the concourse level.
So we went through the plaza, then to the concourse level. That's where all the shops are.
And we had like this long line of people queuing to get out of one final door
before we can get to the street.
And I can see through all of the huge floor ceiling windows that were broken.
(38:43):
I can see the back of St. Paul's church. And I'm like, I can't stand in this
line. Like I tried standing in the line, but I started getting really anxious.
So I jumped out of one of those windows, you know, onto the debris that was
outside and started trying to climb over the debris so I can get to the sidewalk
instead of waiting in the line.
And I was, I just kept sinking into it and didn't understand why I was sinking
(39:07):
into debris because the debris looks sturdy, right?
And this female police officer came over and grabbed me and she was,
she was yelling, no, no, no.
And pulling me back. And that's when I guess I started being more conscious.
And I saw that I was trying to climb over a pile of people.
And she pulled me back and we walked on the outside of the building a little
(39:31):
bit to the front of the line and then crossed over and had to find my way out from there.
But yes, and it was afterwards I stopped and I was standing next to the cemetery
by St. Paul's church and finally turned around and looked back and it's like, I was, I was in there.
(39:54):
The building's on fire. When I was in the stairwell, it's like you felt the heat. There's a smoke.
But none of that equated to you're in a building that's on fire until I got
out of the building and literally saw the fire.
It's like, wow. From your point of view, being inside that building and the
(40:15):
world is watching from the outside, and none of you guys knew what was happening.
I bet you your mom, you know, which was your mom's first response when she saw you?
Because your mother also have a different view from outside and she's watching
this chaos and she knows you on the 92nd floor.
So, yeah, she from her office, she could see my building.
(40:37):
She used to be on the phone and I would call her from my desk and like, I can see you.
We can't see each other, but still, you know, when you got to her office,
she was there at the office. is I had to stop.
Like I told you from the get-go, it was call your mom because you don't want
her coming to you. When you were getting to her, it'll be lost.
So as soon as I finally got out of the building, I saw this little vacancy sign
(40:58):
and I went down a step and I'm like, I need a phone. I need a phone.
And it looked like a little inn of some sort. And they handed me a phone real
quick and they were like, were you in there? And I'm like, yeah, thanks for the phone.
And I call her and I'm like, mom, I'm coming to you. Don't come to me.
And she's like, Sophie, Sophie is this you is this my Sophie I'm like yes mom
I'm coming to you don't come to me oh my god Sophie where are you mom I'm coming
(41:20):
to you don't come to me hung up and took off running had to like you're showing
all of the pictures of the people standing on the street and.
That it's like you just pushed yourself through 92 flights of stairs and then
I got so lost because so many people were just crowding I couldn't find the
landmarks properly to make it to her so So everything,
(41:41):
I was just, people were holding me like, you're covered in stuff.
You're like, stop, were you in there? Because I was covered in stuff.
And I finally, finally made it to her. Wow. Wow.
And it's like people, they have no idea whenever the police is yelling them,
get out. It's because people are trying to evacuate.
And again, it's just like, you know, it's perception, right?
(42:03):
We might get angry at the moment, right, with them. We're like, no, no, no.
Get your ass out because the people are trying to exit the building.
And, you know, it's like people normally trying to gather.
And speaking of trying to get, you know, I heard about the time about that purse,
you know, that you have to clean it. You know, my purse.
(42:24):
So this was my purse that I had with me that day.
It had my stuff, my wallet, my IDs, my mac and cheese and my umbrella.
And I was young. So after I got home, it's like, you know, after everything,
you know, I finally found my purse. and it was covered in soot, covered in that smell.
And I brought that home with me. So I cleaned it and I tried to clean it.
(42:48):
And for years, it's like I would clean it to get that smell out because it triggered me a lot.
And then Carlos tells me, he goes, you need to bring that purse out,
you know? So I go and I bring the purse out. And what do I see? Look at that.
It doesn't go away. It is still there, all there.
Well, not all there. The majority of it's off, but it's in there.
(43:09):
And I was telling him, you know, for years, I felt like I needed to do that with myself.
I tried to clean myself of my trauma. I tried to get it out so I can be who I was before.
And then it took 20 years because it was earlier this year that I started to
say that, yeah, I like this me. This me who is with the trauma.
(43:31):
I had to make trauma Sophie, pre-Sophie, whatever we ended up being one and
be comfortable with just who I am.
Wow. What an incredible story.
You know, because sometimes, you know, we try to, you know, to do things and
wash things out and certain things doesn't go away.
Like I was saying earlier, they just stay right here in the front of our mind,
(43:53):
which is in our prefrontal cortex for the technical people watching us.
And you know sometimes you know
you just have to we gotta go through it my friend sometimes we
in hell right now a lot of people are suffering right now yeah you
know they're losing loved ones i'm losing loved
ones left and right you know and we can argue about it we can blame you know
(44:14):
vaccines and covid and people and government blah blah blah or we can be the
change we can continue the division and fighting and arguing but i can tell
you one thing from experience and having loved ones that have been taken away from me from murder.
That an eye for an eye can only do one thing, and that is to make the entire world blind.
This moment, we just have to, we got to keep washing that purse,
(44:38):
we got to keep washing that shirt and those memories, and just keep going,
because if you're going through hell, that's, you don't want to go back. There's only one way.
That's why you guys see me, you know, riding on my bicycle on the stages around
the world, because life is like riding a bicycle.
There's only one way and that way is forward.
And speaking of going forward, Sofia.
(45:01):
When did you, where were you exactly when the first building started collapsing?
When the first building collapsed, I was in my mom's office.
That's when I just got to the 18th floor in her building.
And we thought that they were bombing everywhere else.
And that was at 9.59 a.m. The school tower started going down after 56 minutes of burning.
(45:24):
So it took you about, it took about 56 minutes to get from your mom,
Sign a second to your mom.
And then what happened from there? What was that? We get to my mom's office.
What was that? Did you know there was the building collapsing?
No, no. So when we get out of my mom's office to get out of the building,
(45:45):
because we thought they were going to bomb that building next, just happened.
My dad was just getting ready to go into my mom's office.
He got the very last train from Midtown to downtown so he could meet up with
us. and we went to the back of my mom's building so we can get on the ramp to
get to the Brooklyn Bridge to get out of Manhattan.
That was pretty much, everybody was trying to get out of Manhattan.
(46:07):
And as soon as we get, there's like this, the ramp goes up and then it makes
like this corner to get onto the Brooklyn Bridge.
And from that elevated corner, you could look back and see the city and see
where the buildings are.
And I'm telling my mom, I'm like, mom, my building's not there.
And she's like, that's stupid. A whole building can't disappear.
And I'm like, mom, my building's not there. And she's like, stop it.
(46:30):
We got to get out of here. Mom, look, there's only one. My building is gone.
And then she finally turned around. Her and my dad turned around to look.
And as we're looking, so I can explain, my building is gone.
We start seeing tower one falling.
And it was just incomprehensible that you're looking at a building just going
(46:50):
to dust and then falling.
After what seemed like forever, but it was actually a few seconds,
you see this dust coming towards us and I start to run.
And my mom grabbed my hair and she's like, no, where are you going?
And I'm like, we got to get out of here. It's coming. We got to get out of here.
And she's like, well, I can't run. I'm like, well, take your shoes off.
Cause my mom can't do anything without six inch heels.
(47:12):
And she's like, I can't run without my shoes. Take your shoes off mom.
And she grabs as my hair. And she's like, no, don't leave us.
So we walked, we walked because she was in six inch heels across the Brooklyn
bridge through every ounce of that dust.
I don't know how it felt like forever, but as soon as we could see Brooklyn,
(47:34):
that's when it started to clear.
What you was on this bridge right here, right? Yeah. Wow.
Holy Jesus. So you are watching as you are outside you watching the whole thing
collapsing in front of your eyes and,
and it's i can you know it's just like crazy you
know i mean and you know just like i showed you guys earlier you know nj over
(47:57):
here you know documenting you know this and this thing plays in my head one
this is as close as we can get to the base of the world trade center you can
see the The firemen assembled here, the police officers, FBI agents.
And you can see the two towers, huge explosion now raining debris on all of
us. We better get out of the way.
(48:18):
This thing is like, it plays in my head, you know, for this last 20 years.
Because by being there two days before, you know, it's just crazy.
When I look at this and I go back and I can imagine you being there at that
moment in your mommy's office, having no idea what it is until you walk down.
And for you guys that don't know the exact timelines, the South Tower collapsed at 9.59 a.m.
(48:43):
Sophia's inside your mom's office, 56 minutes after burning.
So a little, you know, it hits a 9.03, 9.59 it comes down.
And then at 10.28 a.m., the North Tower collapsed and you happens to be looking at it from outside.
On the Brooklyn Bridge. And your mom can now run. Accentuous.
(49:07):
Wow. Wow. So you lived through this. You survived this.
I mean, did you get angry? Like, what did you feel about all this?
As the time passes, walk us through that. So you hit the nail on the head when
you talk about, when you experience trauma, talk about it.
(49:29):
Because, you know, from the Caribbean, we don't go to counseling,
you know, we don't talk about it. You just suck it up and you move on, right?
Everybody has some type of trauma. So it was like, this is not new,
especially in New York. We were all traumatized in New York.
To some extent, the entire world was traumatized with this.
So I started yelling at God by myself,
(49:51):
like, help me understand, help me understand why I had to be there,
you know, and it was years of me having these angry prayers,
but it was still prayer in some form, trying to understand.
And I never got an answer until my cousin called me this year saying,
(50:13):
Sophie, you deal with PTSD.
You've thought about wanting to kill yourself several times.
I'm in that spot right now and I need your help. And we talked for like two
and a half hours until he was too tired and he said, thanks,
I needed that. And then he texted me the next day and was like, thank you.
(50:34):
And I text him back. And I said, you know, now I understand why I had to go
through what I went through.
And if it was just to help you not feel the way you feel right now,
and for you to not give up, I'll do it all over again. in.
So everybody, every client that comes to me, suicidal, not suicidal,
(50:56):
just frustrated and angry with life.
This is why I had to go through what I had to go through.
So I can be not in their shoes, but understand how it feels to be that low and
how it feels to want to give up almost every day, but find the strength to keep going.
So they don't have to explain it to me. All we have to do is to start to figure
(51:19):
out where to rebuild and how to rebuild.
That's why, that's the type of relationship I try to have with everyone.
You don't have to be a client to know that I'm here to help.
Amen, sister. Amen. Wow. I'm just so grateful that we had the honor to spend
this hour here and talk about this. I know it wasn't easy.
(51:39):
I know that there's a lot of emotions that are going through us right now.
You know, you for experiencing this horrific event.
You know, I was there two days before and for 15 years I couldn't go back to
New York as I told you guys earlier and I lost a few people this week.
So it's a very difficult show to do, ladies and gentlemen, but I know that somebody
out there needed to hear this today.
(52:01):
I know there's somebody there right now and I pray for you if you are going
through some trauma, if you've ever been abused or tortured or lost a loved
ones or been betrayed by somebody or somebody lied to you or cheated on you.
I just wanted you to know that.
To keep it going. I wanted you to know that that's the moment that,
you know, throughout in the midst of all the chaos that went down,
(52:23):
as you guys can see here, we were together. We were holding each other's hands.
There was unity. At that moment in time, 20 years ago, we didn't worry about
who we voted for, which religion we were, whether we had whatever vaccine was
on back then in those days. None of that matters, ladies and gentlemen.
(52:44):
We came together. That's what we are known for in the United States of America.
It's a unity. It's united.
Divided, we cannot conquer anything. We learned that from history.
It's about us coming together. Enough division.
Enough arguing. All this stuff is not going to take us anyone.
If you're doing it for entertainment purposes, keep it there.
(53:07):
Don't take it into your homes. Break it to your friends.
Don't take it. because this shit will hunt you down as they hunt Sophia for
almost 20 years, as they hunted me for almost 15.
They hunted thousands and thousands of lives.
They are watching this. They were there in that building, the loved ones, their family members.
(53:31):
Unfortunately, it wasn't that many that survived, but the ones that did,
they are sharing their stories.
They are inspiring and impacting others because that's what we need.
We need the world to come together so that we can be the change,
as Gandhi used to say, that we want to see in others.
For the ones that love reading the Bible, my favorite quote from God, let there be light.
(53:55):
Let's all of us be the lights that we want to see in others around the world.
It's an honor to have you here, my friend. And the question that I ask all my
guests that come on this show, Sophia, before we depart from this special,
incredible episode, is 100 years from now, you are 125.
(54:17):
And it's your eulogy. And they are going to read it.
And everybody's going to be, some people are going to be very happy.
They're going to be celebrating because they're going to be thinking about the
amazing things that you did.
A few others will have a few tears in their eyes.
And they're going to read that eulogy of yours, and they're going to say,
Sophia Cannon was an incredible woman.
(54:39):
She inspired millions and millions of lives because she faced the devil in the eyes.
And she went on counseling them and inspiring them and helping so many others
around the world, from Trinidad to the United States and globally.
And they're going to say, Sophia Cannon was dot, dot, dot.
(55:00):
In Sophia Cannon's own words, who Sophia Cannon was? Wow.
She was just like everybody else. I am just like you, not any different.
And I found a way to keep hoping myself and keep my faith.
And that's all I want to inspire others to do, to realize that they're no different
(55:24):
from anybody else who survives at everything and anything every day.
And I want everybody to start finding faith in themselves, finding hope in themselves
and trusting themselves.
If you're hurt, if you're sad, it's for a reason, trust that.
And if you're happy, trust that also, just be.
We are all the same and we're all in this together. So Sophia Cannon inspired
(55:47):
people to trust themselves, find faith and hope in themselves.
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