June 22, 2023 • 42 mins
Despite facing personal challenges such as having dyslexia, his Father passing away and everyday challenges in life, Elijah remained optimistic and motivated especially through his Mom and twin brothers who are also adopted, both having special needs.
Growing up in a mixed-race family allowed him to broaden his perspective and helped him appreciate life and the diversity of the world we live in. Elijah believes that anyone can make a difference and be successful, no matter their age or background if you first believe in yourself. He hopes to inspire others to pursue their passions and their dreams despite any challenges and negativities. To find inspiration through life and the people around us.
I am so honored to have the opportunity to interview this future leader!This podcast is powered by DenTen Insurance - Insurance for the Greater Good. www.denten.io To listen to more and be inspired, visit www.michaelespositoinc.com
Growing up in a mixed-race family allowed him to broaden his perspective and helped him appreciate life and the diversity of the world we live in. Elijah believes that anyone can make a difference and be successful, no matter their age or background if you first believe in yourself. He hopes to inspire others to pursue their passions and their dreams despite any challenges and negativities. To find inspiration through life and the people around us.
I am so honored to have the opportunity to interview this future leader!This podcast is powered by DenTen Insurance - Insurance for the Greater Good. www.denten.io To listen to more and be inspired, visit www.michaelespositoinc.com
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(00:00):
This show is sponsored by dn tenInsurance Services, helping businesses get the right
insurance for all their insurance needs.Visit dn ten dot io to get a
quote d n t N dot ioand remember, when you buy an insurance
policy from dent ten, you're givingback on a global scale. Hello all,
(00:21):
my entrepreneurs and business leaders, andwelcome to the Michael Esposito Show,
where I interview titans of industry inorder to inform, educate, and inspire
you to be great. Sometimes thepeople that I have on the show are
teenagers, and today I have avery very special guest in studio. He's
overcome a hard start to life,has had many challenges impeding his success,
(00:48):
and yet through it all he founda way to see and become greater than
he had ever imagined himself to become, accomplishing goals such as getting into one
of his first choices of colleges,and much much more. You're going to
learn about his journey and his storyover the next couple of minutes. Please
(01:08):
welcome my guest today, Elijah Flynn. Welcome to the show. Elijah,
Hi, thank you for having me. I'm very honored to have you on
this show today. Of course,got to give a big shout out to
your mom, who's a great personalfriend and an amazing coach and mentor to
me. And the reason why Ibring that up from the very beginning is
(01:33):
because I think it's important that weappreciate the people around us, the people
who help give us a start,and your mother is one of those people
who's done that for me, who'shelped me and what I've been trying to
create. And I felt it wasimportant to give back in any way I
(01:53):
possibly can. And I wanted tointerview you because you have such a tremendous
story and I wanted to share thatwith others because I think your story can
give back to others as well,and they can learn from it and overcoming
so many different challenges. And theother part of that that is about our
networks and the availability of our networks. Are that is there in that you're
(02:16):
eighteen and you didn't know me,but because of the people that love you
and surround you, and because theytalk so highly about you, it was
so important for me to meet youand have you here. I might have
gotten lost a little bit in mytrain of thought there, but I just
wanted to share that with you comingfrom me. So I know a little
(02:38):
bit about you, but our audiencedoesn't know. And I would love for
you to share a little bit aboutyour upbringing as it is unique to most
college bound eighteen year olds. Tellus about your mom. Well, my
mom is my second mom in mylife. I was adopted, um,
(03:02):
pretty much as soon as I wasborn. It was planned. Um.
Some things about my mom is thatI don't think I could have done all
this without her. She was inextremely supportive and everything I do, even
when sometimes it doesn't even when tilnI um like wh I wasn't played maybe
(03:24):
going to college she wasn't. Shedidn't love it, but she was still
supportive and never said you can't doit. She always believed me. So
I think because of her, II mean, I'm here today and and
of course you're speaking about mom,merit. And I'm also interested in this,
(03:45):
this planned adoption and your your birthmom and what that was like when
you learned about it, or evenif you could walk us through what a
planned adoption is. Um, So, a planned adoption is kind of before
you are born, or you're you'regonna be adopted before you're born. So
(04:10):
it's I think it's a little easierbecause then you're you're with your adoptive mom
your whole life pretty much. UM, I don't really know how everything goes
with that. UM. So withthat being said, how old were you
when you found out that you wereadopted? I actually don't remember when as
(04:35):
long as I can remember, soprobably very young, okay. And in
in that whole process, you thenfound two new brothers and I and I
say it that way because they werealso adopted. I did. Um.
I think I was four or fivemaybe when we adopted them. U.
(05:00):
They are twins, and um,they both had special needs, so it
was a bit. It was kindof a big change for our family,
but it was nice. I notsure what my life would be with be
like without them, and I lovethem. What was that? What was
(05:25):
a household like for you? Growingup in a household where you have two
new brothers who are also adopted.Um, they're they're also you have a
mixed race family now, so differentdynamic there and then special needs? What
was that like for you growing up? Um? It was pre chaotic,
but it definitely kept things interesting,not wasn't It's never really boring, you
(05:50):
say, UM definitely made things abit challenging, But I was pre young,
so it was It's a bit hardto remember like how difficult it was.
I personally, I didn't have toomuch of a problem with it for
(06:13):
a bit, but it was probablyvery hard on my mom and dad too,
since they had more the responsibility oftaking care of us than I did
of taking care of them. Then, when you look back at that time,
do you feel like you learned howto overcome difficult situations from it?
(06:33):
Most definitely, Um, it was. It was a very I would say,
it was pretty difficult situation. Soit made other UM challenges that I
faced my life seemed kind of easier, kind of like, oh, well,
this is difficult. But I wasfive years old and having twin brothers
(06:58):
come into life with special needs,I made that stuff seemed pretty simple.
Speak a little bit about that appreciationthat you have now that or as you've
grown, UM, appreciation in termsof that of looking at challenges and seeing
(07:18):
today you're looking at challenges and you'reable to look back and go, hey,
look, I was five years old. I was in a house with
kids with special needs, with brothers, siblings with special needs, mixed race,
home and overcoming my own special needsright, which we'll talk a little
bit more about. What kind ofappreciation does that give you today for the
(07:39):
things that you're doing. I thinkit makes me appreciate all the people that
have been there for me. Definitelymakes me appreciate UM. I would say
life in general as like this.When it's easy, you know, UM
(08:01):
lost loss of times it wasn't easy. Usually there was always a challenge.
And so whenever there isn't really achallenge, I really appreciate that and also
feels a bit weird when there's not. It's like it's like kind of makes
me feel like I think there shouldbe a challenge. So it feels nice
(08:22):
when there's not a bit weird.Yeah, of course you were at with
many other challenges. Um, youryour father passed UM later um in twenty
seventeen or excuse me, in twentyand twelve. And how did you meet
that challenge? UM, So myfather passed, UM. That was I
(08:46):
would say it was pretty difficult becausenow that my mom was the only parent
in the house made him much harderto deal with my brothers as oh she
had to deal with them all alone. It didn't really change outside of the
(09:09):
house. I would say it wasmore inside, like, yeah, kind
of just controlling my brothers. Ididn't really have too much difficulty. I
feel like I feel like I didn'tchange too much. I might have been
a little more quiet, but morethan that, I didn't really change.
(09:31):
I would say, yeah, Imean, it's obviously a challenging time.
But then you went to the RandolphSchool, and my understanding is it kind
of opened up a whole new worldof learning for you and a whole new
set of experiences. I'm interested insome of those experiences that you had and
that you you gained from there.Yeah. So Randolph was much more hands
(09:54):
on learning than other schools. Ithink that helped a lot. Due to
my dyslexia. I had a hardtime reading, so hands on work was
if I could engage on it muchmore. I felt I enjoyed it way
more. It made it easier tolearn. There was a lot of people
(10:18):
that kind of for a bit same. Not everyone had dyslexia, but I
feel like lots of people also rememberall hands on learning, so it sky
around people that were similar to me. That was nice. Tell us more
about your dyslexia and what makes ita little bit different, so it makes
(10:41):
it just hard to read. I'vewhat seems to me is that I have
a much harder time pronouncing things.Also, sometimes when I talk, I
just stumble on my words a lot, which is I'm not sure if it's
because d slexia or something else.Yeah, that's gonna be some public speech
stuff that you and I work on. Um, I don't. Words don't
(11:07):
move around for me. I don't. I don't have that, but really
really just pronouncing words and kind ofum yeah, kind of like a little
blockage there when you're reading. Yeah, So I also have dyslexia, and
(11:28):
so it's my experience is that it'sexhausting to read, right, It's like
it literally reading a paragraph puts meto sleep. Right. What what have
you used in order to overcome someof this challenge? Um? So I
use audio books. Those actually helpa lot because with audio and books I
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can actually kind of imagine what's happeninginstead of reading words. Because also sometimes
it happens so I'm reading, isthat kind just I kind of start reading
it, I'm just noting a thingabout what I'm reading. Some just just
disappears. And audiobooks help a lotwith that. It's kind of like a
(12:11):
more of a it's not visual butright, well, you end up creating
your own visualizations through it. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly. We're the
same in terms of that. Andwhen I would read, it would just
I could read three pages and fromnodding off and then from coming back to
right, you're just I don't knowwhat I read. I have no clue
(12:33):
what I just read, and there'snothing there. But I also use audio
books, and I everything that Ihear in the audio book, I actually
it resonates with me. I actuallypick up and it sounds like that's the
same with you. So the RandolphSchool had this hands on learning experience.
When you think about that and goinginto college, which we're going to talk
(12:56):
about that whole journey that took youthere, but just kind of relating the
two, how do you see yourselfas a college student, what do you
what do you think you would lookfor in your professors in your college classes
in order to help or that youcan relate back to the Randolph School.
Well, with college, you're muchmore independent, so I feel like you're
(13:18):
a little more hands on with allthat too. It's not just your parents
I'm babying you through the whole thing, so I think that will make it
a bit easier. Some people mightsee that a difficulty. That's one of
my biggest things I'm looking forward tois that I can I feel like I've
an easier time connecting with my professors. It's kind of like I don't because
(13:43):
lots of times I can know thatmy parents will do it, Like my
parents will ask the teacher or something. I don't have to so I kind
of just let them do it.But it kind of makes it harder to
do that. But knowing that Ihave to do it, this is like
if I don't do it, noone else is going to do it for
(14:03):
me. Like that will be kindof nice. With a change, it's
that's a little more hands on theresponsibility of it all. Yeah. Do
you enjoying responsibility? Um? Iwould say I do. Yeah. Um.
There's some responsibilities that are like kindof annoying. Feeding the animals.
I don't always have to do it. I love them, but their food
(14:26):
smells. So you look forward tonot having to do that very often.
Yeah. Having some college essays thatcan get you out of that kind of
work. Right, Speaking of college, essays. In terms of writing,
how do you how do you connectwith writing when we're talking about dyslexia.
UM, So, I'm not thebest of writers. Um I've I've actually
(14:52):
went to a summer camp throughout fiveor six years that was based off of
um It was sleepaway for about twoweeks and every day you would wake up
and go to a ranting workshop forthree hours. I think that helped a
lot. As I would say,now I'm like an average writer compared to
(15:16):
everyone else. As before, Iwould be very far behind. My essay
grades are much higher now for itwould be like I past this essay.
Now it's hopefully I get like aninety or one. You know some what
you're kind of sharing with me aboutyou know, overcoming dyslexia through audio books
(15:39):
and with the writing. And asyou're talking about, I'm thinking about your
resiliency and your determination to become successful, and I'm interested in where that comes
from in you of like that desireto achieve more. Um well, I
think I've always just want to becomesomething. There was a time where I
(16:04):
thought maybe that I'm I'm actually wantinglike when I grow UF, I might
just start living on the streets orsomething. So I think that put a
lot of fear into my heart.So now I'm like, so I started
working hard on trying to stay awayfrom that and become something great because it
(16:27):
was either for me, it waseither um living on the streets or only
become very successful. There was noin between. I've definitely later I would
say, now I've realized that it'sokay, I'm actually shooting to be more
in between, as I want tobecome a teacher. So I think that's
(16:52):
helped a lot from steering away fromthis fear of being likest or something.
There's this idea of if I'm notsuccessful, if I don't have it all,
then then I get nothing kind ofidea. Where where did this idea
of living on the streets come in? Because that's not something that everybody thinks
(17:18):
about when they don't make it tobe super successful. They might say,
you know, I'm not a millionaire, but you know I might just be
able to get a nine to fivejob. But you're saying living on the
streets. So I'm interested in wherethat perspective came from in your life.
I'm not sure if it was actuallyI've always just been like kind of a
warrior, So I kind of thingof like the worst possible situations. I
(17:45):
think it definitely isn't great. Ithink it does help a bit because like,
if the worst situation comes, thena little bit ready for it.
But if it doesn't, then that'sit makes me feel great. I think
this was kind of an extreme case. So it was preparing for the worst
(18:06):
for you. Yeah, what waspreparing for the best? What did that
look like for you? Being supersuccessful? Um? Well, when I
was young, I kind of,um thought it would just like kind of
just happen, which, by theway, you're still young, like twelve
or something. I was like,it, if it's meant to be,
(18:29):
then it's going to happen. SoI kind of just let things just I
kind of just go with the flow. When I started getting too, like
high school and around after COVID,I started realizing that's not really how it
works and I actually have to putin the work too, sure something.
What's your portrait of success? Um? What does it look like to you
(18:56):
from a career, from any perspective, from just the word itself. Meeting
a goal that you set for yourself. Oh, I've set many goals for
running so that's why also consider myselfas successful runner at least because I've broken
(19:21):
many goals. And yeah, soyou know, going back to this whole
idea of living on the streets tobecoming successful, you went through this challenging
time in your life where you decided, you know what, I'm just gonna
forget it all. I'm going todrop out of running, I'm going to
drop out of school or not goto college, whatever it was. But
(19:42):
you had this life changing moment wherebecause you have this open adoption with your
with your mom, you had anopportunity to go out to California and be
a part of a wedding, andin that experience, from my understanding,
you made a decision to change thisidea of living on the streets and quitting
(20:07):
everything to that middle ground that youwere just sharing with us. Could you
share a little bit about what thatexperience did for you. Of of going
and being a part of your mom'swedding in California, I think that actually
played a really big role in kindof me wanting to become a teacher or
actually becoming successful and working hard becauseshe was becoming she was getting married,
(20:34):
and that kind of is a verybig step. So seeing her face a
challenge like that and grow it kindof inspired me to do the same because
I think that was actually the firstround, the first time I actually mentioned
I wanted to become a teacher incollege to my mom, to your mom
merit, yeah, yeah, andyour other your mom who got married,
(20:56):
your biological mom. What her nameNicole Hole just for our listener's sake here
and Nicole is the one who gotmarried in California. Um, and continue.
Um. The wedding, Like,the actual experience of the wedding was
very nice. Oh, I gotto be the ring bearer. Um.
(21:19):
We're eating something store, some prettygood food there. It's a pretty good
food. You know. There's somethingsomething about the age of sixteen that um
ties this together to some extent.And if you could share a little bit
about that with our audience, UM, in that your mom had you when
(21:41):
you were sixteen, and then asthe ring bearer, you were sixteen.
Yeah, so there's the connection there. Um, was that on your mind
at all while while you were there? I don't think much now it was
more. What was more on mymind was not losing the ring. It's
(22:04):
a good thing to have on yourmind. No, but it wasn't really
on my mind. It might havepopped in once in a while. But
but you were very inspired by thisby seeing her overcome the challenges that she
did in her life and now moveon to get married and start a life
and be happy. Right, yeah, And so that inspired you, and
(22:27):
on your way back, you decided, you know what, I'm gonna go
back to running and I'm gonna applyto college. Tell us about that experience
of going from a student athlete whowas running all the time, who enjoyed
running quit And now we understand,And I'm gonna give you a little perspective
on my understanding of when we quita sport. I play basketball, and
(22:49):
I play weekly every Sunday, everySunday. It's literally my religion. We
call it church. It's not evena joke. That's exactly what we call
it. Sunday hoops. And duringthe week I exercise. I do some
cardio. So I do anywhere fromfour to eight miles on a station every
bike for twenty to forty minutes,depending on the day, depending on time.
(23:12):
And recently I had a bit aninjury and knee injury, and so
I had to stop doing the bike, and so for about four weeks,
I haven't been on the bike,and I'm at Sunday ball and I am
huffing and puffing going up and downthe court. I still played, but
I didn't do my cardio during theweek. And so I bring this back
(23:33):
to you. In that year,you were probably like sixteen seventeen when you
quit. But I bring this backto you, And how did it affect
you taking that much time off fromrunning to then getting up to the speed
to where you're one of the topstudent athletes in your school. Um,
it was really difficult starting a newI added my freshman time for my was
(24:00):
like in eighteen forty and then lifebest junior time was like in twenty two
minutes. Wow. Um. Duringcross country, I mostly just wanted to
quit. I'm gonna be honest,Like I really didn't want to be there.
Um. I think my mom forthis again. She was like,
(24:21):
no, he said, you wantedto become a runner, and even doing
it for so long, Um,just keep going practice. Um. She
kindn't let me quit, which I'mvery thankful for because now I love it
now. Um. And next afterthe next season, I still wasn't great
(24:44):
during indoor um, but it wasstarted becoming more enjoyable unless of a chore
um because the first I would say, it takes the like a couple of
months until you get to the partwhere it's like, wow, this is
this is extremely fun and it's notjust agony the whole time. When was
that switch for you that it switchedfrom being a chore to it actually being
(25:08):
extremely fun as you just said,um. For me, I think it
was around a bit, definitely whenI got into shape a bit. And
also I would say seeing kind ofmy friends also do so well because during
(25:30):
during cross country, I knew acouple of the guys, most of the
guys and they they weren't some ofthem were just as good as me during
that time and they kept going andjust seeing them keep going kind of inspired
me. And I think it startedbecoming less of a chorism. Our bond
(25:53):
kind grew too. It was kindof like a time to run and talk
with my friends. That was Ithink that's when it clicked. That's really
cool. And I think you knowyou're speaking to some commitment there that your
mom's teaching you about committing when youcommit to a goal. And also I
like that you touched on. Asyou got into shape, it started becoming
(26:15):
less of a sture too, Andthat just speaks to momentum, right,
And that's anything in life, isthat as we start building momentum towards something,
it becomes easier and it does becomemore fun. But of course it's
hard in the beginning. Anything that'sworth it is going to be hard in
the beginning, So that makes totalsense. And then I love that you
brought up camaraderie with friends, becauseif we're doing something, to have people
(26:37):
around us that support us, thatare having fun with us. So that's
all key. And I'll give youa quick little story on my mom just
so we can relate here a littlebit. When I was in high school,
I got kicked out of my junioryear for disciplinary problems and I ended
up going to a public I wentfrom Catholic school to public school. So
it was a big transition for me, and I was just depressed, just
(27:00):
putting my head down in class,going to sleep, like not even I
was in present. I was justliterally not even there. I was on
a swim team at at Malloy.We were state champions. I was great
at swimming and I didn't even wantto join a swim team at Bayside High
School. Eventually I did, butI didn't even care. And when I
graduated, which also a whole otherstory, but when I graduated, I
(27:25):
didn't want to go to college.I wasn't going to go to college.
I didn't care to go to college. I had no desire. And a
lot of it had to do withthis story that I was pulling with me
of I got kicked out of school. No college is going to accept me,
nobody, you know, there's nooptions for me. So I'm just
going to quit, you know,similar to you like I'm gonna live on
the streets, right And my motherwas not going to have it, so
(27:48):
she went she enrolled me at NassauCommunity College and she told me, you're
going I think like August sixteenth orsomething like that for placement exams and you're
going And I said, no,I'm not. I'm not going to school
and taking a year off. Iwas like, I'm taking a year off.
You know, that's kind of likewhat we tell everybody, but we
all know what that really means.And on that date, and she made
sure that she was available and sheput me in the car, puts me
(28:12):
in the car. I didn't getin the car. She put me in
the car, drove me to Nassauand I took my exams and everything,
and she was there waiting and droveme home. And I got accepted and
went to Nassau and then ended upgraduating Marris College. But my point that
I'm making here is that sometimes weneed that little kick in the butt from
mom. So I'm glad that youappreciate that. So now I'm gonna just
(28:38):
backtrack a little bit here because Ido want to acknowledge somebody else's special in
your life is your dad, andthat in twenty seventeen, Well, why
don't you share with us what happenedthen? So in twenty seventeen, yeah,
(29:00):
um so, why when my daddied? Um, my mom,
we moved to Beacon or so HudsonValley and she kind of went dating a
bit and she found she eventually foundthis one guy named Tom Flynn. Um
(29:22):
uh. And they did eventually getmarried and he actually adopted me and my
brothers, making at the second adoptionof our lives. Um So, I
was very special. Um. Ithink he also plays a great role in
how I've thought I've gotten Um,he's a bit of a goofy person,
(29:45):
I would say, but I lovehim for that and for all the things
he's done. Yeah, he playsa big role. And uh and if
anybody wants to learn about that littlelove story, they can listen to Merit
Minimiers podcast episode or where we actuallygo down that road and learned so much
more about what happened and her lifechanging experiences. So Tom adopts you guys
(30:11):
in twenty seventeen and you just saidit was special for you. Did did
anything else change in your life fromthat experience from meeting him? And you
mentioned he's goofy. What did headd to your life in terms of a
presence. I think he definitely madeit easier on our whole family. Um,
(30:32):
now that there's someone else to helpwith my brothers and me. Um,
now having a father figure definitely helps. UM. I think he's he's
very loving. Um. It's also, as I said, goofy. Yeah,
(30:52):
some pretty good dad jokes. Iwould say, Well, dad jokes
are important. We need those,you know. I'll tell you what I'm
going to defend dad jokes. Theonly reason why we have dad jokes is
because if we gave you our realjokes, we'd get kicked out of the
room. Like we'd get kicked outof the room. They're too vulgar.
You just can't handle them. I'mtelling you, you just can't handle our
(31:12):
jokes, you know. Going now, what I see as like a through
line for you is that you've hadjust tremendous support in your life and a
tremendous amount of love. But ata certain point that didn't matter because you
had to make a decision and youwent from thinking that you're not going to
go to college to making a decisionI'm going to go to college. And
(31:36):
I want to jump fast forward tothat now, into that moment where you
said, I'm going to college.I want to become a teacher. Mom
gave you all the reasons that it'snot reasons, but she told you what
the reality of it is of becominga teacher, grad school and everything you
knew about dyslexia and the challenges youhad to overcome, and then you went
and started applying to colleges. Tellus about that experience, Well, it's
(32:01):
a very difficult experience. I knewit was important. I didn't like it,
really, it was tedious. Itwas very tedious. Luckily, my
mom and dad were very present forthat, so I think that made it
very easy. I remember applying andthinking more worried that I was am I
(32:27):
getting into any of these I wasvery scary because my grades are pretty bad,
so there was a chance I wouldn'tget to any college. So that
was the worry there. What doyou think so before I well, we
talked about it in the beginning,but what do you think was the reason
(32:47):
that the colleges actually did start acceptingand looking into you as a prospect as
a student. Well after COVID,around junior year of high school, I
started to bring my grades up.I think my first quarter from eventually I
(33:08):
got to nineties, and then senioryear I just kept nineties. So I
think seeing the progress and that Iactually want to go to college, I
think them seeing that and I hadthe capabilities of doing this, they started
expecting me there. I also thinkrunning as I was applying, I was
(33:32):
talking to the coaches from there too. I think that helped a bit.
So when we're thinking about other kidsthat are maybe in your position where they're
having a challenge in school or challengeoutside of school and as you said,
like you didn't have this like norwhat people paint as a normal upbringing.
(33:55):
And there's no such thing as normal, but people pain as the normal upbringing.
You had this, as you said, hard growing up and all these
different challenges that you had to overcome. But yet you always had love and
support. But what was important wasthat people saw progress in you. Um,
they saw that you were capable.And then you had this student athlete
(34:17):
angle as well, where you knowpeople in your in your age group,
if they're looking at to go tocollege or something, being a student athlete,
um, being a part of studentextracurricular activities. If you're not athletic,
maybe it's part of student government orsomething else. Um. What about
art? Is art something that resonateswith you a little bit? Um?
(34:37):
Art definitely resonates with me a bit. It's fine, like the most hands
on thing you can do. Yeah, I'm not a great artist, but
I do really enjoy it. Itake a class that's kind of It's not
just Artum, it's in bossis calledGraphic and Visual Arts U. So it
(35:00):
is a lot of art. Dodraw things mostly mainly on a computer,
not by hand. Right now,we're like doing animation stuff for making things
move, and see will be workingon stop motion. That's pretty cool.
So I think art definitely has helpedme a lot with school. Do you
(35:22):
see any of the stuff that you'redoing now extracurriculus kind of stuff like running
or art or anything else that you'reenjoying as a career for yourself later in
life. And then I know youmentioned teacher, but bringing it together,
I'm not really sure that I seeit as a career too much, as
(35:44):
art is more of a hobby tome, and running I think I'll definitely
keep it as I get older,and I'll keep training, But to make
that a career, I would haveto be on like the Olympic level.
Okay. And and when you thinkabout becoming a teacher, what do you
feel like you'd be teaching or um? I would say math um? Yeah,
(36:09):
mostly math um. There's I couldalso go into like some form like
maybe economics or something teaching that,because that's another choice that I've thought about,
is um majoring in like economics orsome form of business. So I
could just combine those two and teachthat. So is it fair to assume
(36:32):
then? So is math your favoritesubject in school, then, UM,
I'm not really sure if it's actuallymy favorite. I think out of like
English and science, math is myfavorite. Okay, definitely right out of
those, right, Jim and Lunchtake that? Right? Well, I
mean, yes, Jim, Jimand Lunch will always win. We get
(36:53):
to socialize or we get to play. Um, they're always going to win.
But sure, I'm sure Math certainlytakes the cake. Excuse me.
Um is a part of that.So just to kind of conclude this and
go to the colleges, So youwere accepted into eight colleges, and two
(37:15):
of those colleges were your top choices. Would you like to share anything more
about that, about those choices,about who they are, or anything about
that. So the two colleges thatI've accepted, two were barred and Lemoinne
(37:35):
very excited about that. Those werefrom all the other colleges, Like we
weren't sure I would be able toget into like the colleges or like lower
on the lists, like the leastacademically requiring U and Bard and Lemoinne were
like far stretches like UM were likesome They're of tough choices. So getting
(38:00):
into those were. It was verysurprising. Or get seeing that email UM
showed my parents. They teared offof it. It's kind of sweet,
a bit funny. Um, Ithink it was. It was a boost
(38:20):
of confidence too, you know,like all this all my hard work paid
off to see that, the everythingI've done over like the two years working
hard at running and bringing my gradesup seeing actually pay off. Yeah,
payoff. Did you happy dance?I actually did not happy dance. My
parents definitely happy dance, that's forsure. Oh yeah, I'm happy dancing
(38:44):
for you. You mentioned boost ofconfidence. Um, how does that boost
of confidence carry out? I thinkit gives me a little more confidence in
like the future too, knowing thatI can do these things you've and with
some challenges, Um, it will. I won't look at a task and
(39:07):
go I'll probably not going to dothis. I'll look at a task and
go I can. Yeah. SoI also have a hard time with that.
It's nice to see that. Yeah, that that boost of confidence is
real. Tell us about why Bardstands out for you as top choice.
Um, So I really loved thecampus there, that's for sure. But
(39:31):
um, as I mentioned, there'sthis summer camp I went to that was
tons of writing. Um And Ilove the people there that kind of went
there, and Bard is actually kindof similar to it. They have a
lot of writing, which is kindof weird why a dyslexic kid would want
to go to that type of college. But I kind of felt I got
(39:52):
the same vibe. I kind ofI kind of feel like I kind of
belonged there, you know, likeI already knew almost like people that would
be there. Um. I talkedto the coach there. I loved him.
He was awesome, So kind ofjust everything I'm just seemed like it
fit. It's cool how that writingthing kind of came full circle for you
(40:14):
with Bard and then and then ofcourse it is nice to have a coach
that you you connect with, especiallywith running and being such a great passion
of yours. Um So, whenyou think about kids in your position,
we talked a little bit about this, but just from from you, when
you think about kids that are sixteenyears old, that are experiencing hardships in
(40:37):
school, maybe hardships at home,maybe have a tough upbringing, what message
would you like them to hear fromyou? Um So, really give up?
Um, I know a lot ofpep will say that, but it
(40:58):
definitely can get rid hard and thereit can seem that it might be impossible.
And really the only thing you reallyneed is to believe in yourself.
I feel like having others believe inyou is nice, but as long as
you believe that you can do itand you put in the work, you
(41:20):
you'll get through it. Awesome.Well, thank you so much for coming
on. I am very happy foryou into getting into Barred. I know
you're going to have a successful careerahead of you and I appreciate you coming
on today and sharing your story witheveryone. Thank you and thank you for
having me. It was a delightfulexperience cool. Thanks so much. Thank
you for listening to The Michael EspositoShow. For show notes, video clips,
(41:44):
and more episodes, go to MichaelEsposito Inc. Dot com backslash podcast.
Thank you again to our sponsor,dent ten Insurance Services, helping businesses
get the right insurance for all theirinsurance needs. Visit dent ten dot io
to get a quote that's d Nt N dot io and remember when you
(42:06):
buy an insurance policy from Denton,you're giving back on a global scale.
This episode was produced by Uncle Mikeat the iHeart Studios in Poughkeepsie. Special
thanks to Lara Rodrean for the opportunityand my team at Michaels Posito in
This show is sponsored by dn tenInsurance Services, helping businesses get the right
insurance for all their insurance needs.Visit dn ten dot io to get a
quote d n t N dot ioand remember, when you buy an insurance
policy from dent ten, you're givingback on a global scale. Hello all,
(00:21):
my entrepreneurs and business leaders, andwelcome to the Michael Esposito Show,
where I interview titans of industry inorder to inform, educate, and inspire
you to be great. Sometimes thepeople that I have on the show are
teenagers, and today I have avery very special guest in studio. He's
overcome a hard start to life,has had many challenges impeding his success,
(00:48):
and yet through it all he founda way to see and become greater than
he had ever imagined himself to become, accomplishing goals such as getting into one
of his first choices of colleges,and much much more. You're going to
learn about his journey and his storyover the next couple of minutes. Please
(01:08):
welcome my guest today, Elijah Flynn. Welcome to the show. Elijah,
Hi, thank you for having me. I'm very honored to have you on
this show today. Of course,got to give a big shout out to
your mom, who's a great personalfriend and an amazing coach and mentor to
me. And the reason why Ibring that up from the very beginning is
(01:33):
because I think it's important that weappreciate the people around us, the people
who help give us a start,and your mother is one of those people
who's done that for me, who'shelped me and what I've been trying to
create. And I felt it wasimportant to give back in any way I
(01:53):
possibly can. And I wanted tointerview you because you have such a tremendous
story and I wanted to share thatwith others because I think your story can
give back to others as well,and they can learn from it and overcoming
so many different challenges. And theother part of that that is about our
networks and the availability of our networks. Are that is there in that you're
(02:16):
eighteen and you didn't know me,but because of the people that love you
and surround you, and because theytalk so highly about you, it was
so important for me to meet youand have you here. I might have
gotten lost a little bit in mytrain of thought there, but I just
wanted to share that with you comingfrom me. So I know a little
(02:38):
bit about you, but our audiencedoesn't know. And I would love for
you to share a little bit aboutyour upbringing as it is unique to most
college bound eighteen year olds. Tellus about your mom. Well, my
mom is my second mom in mylife. I was adopted, um,
(03:02):
pretty much as soon as I wasborn. It was planned. Um.
Some things about my mom is thatI don't think I could have done all
this without her. She was inextremely supportive and everything I do, even
when sometimes it doesn't even when tilnI um like wh I wasn't played maybe
(03:24):
going to college she wasn't. Shedidn't love it, but she was still
supportive and never said you can't doit. She always believed me. So
I think because of her, II mean, I'm here today and and
of course you're speaking about mom,merit. And I'm also interested in this,
(03:45):
this planned adoption and your your birthmom and what that was like when
you learned about it, or evenif you could walk us through what a
planned adoption is. Um, So, a planned adoption is kind of before
you are born, or you're you'regonna be adopted before you're born. So
(04:10):
it's I think it's a little easierbecause then you're you're with your adoptive mom
your whole life pretty much. UM, I don't really know how everything goes
with that. UM. So withthat being said, how old were you
when you found out that you wereadopted? I actually don't remember when as
(04:35):
long as I can remember, soprobably very young, okay. And in
in that whole process, you thenfound two new brothers and I and I
say it that way because they werealso adopted. I did. Um.
I think I was four or fivemaybe when we adopted them. U.
(05:00):
They are twins, and um,they both had special needs, so it
was a bit. It was kindof a big change for our family,
but it was nice. I notsure what my life would be with be
like without them, and I lovethem. What was that? What was
(05:25):
a household like for you? Growingup in a household where you have two
new brothers who are also adopted.Um, they're they're also you have a
mixed race family now, so differentdynamic there and then special needs? What
was that like for you growing up? Um? It was pre chaotic,
but it definitely kept things interesting,not wasn't It's never really boring, you
(05:50):
say, UM definitely made things abit challenging, But I was pre young,
so it was It's a bit hardto remember like how difficult it was.
I personally, I didn't have toomuch of a problem with it for
(06:13):
a bit, but it was probablyvery hard on my mom and dad too,
since they had more the responsibility oftaking care of us than I did
of taking care of them. Then, when you look back at that time,
do you feel like you learned howto overcome difficult situations from it?
(06:33):
Most definitely, Um, it was. It was a very I would say,
it was pretty difficult situation. Soit made other UM challenges that I
faced my life seemed kind of easier, kind of like, oh, well,
this is difficult. But I wasfive years old and having twin brothers
(06:58):
come into life with special needs,I made that stuff seemed pretty simple.
Speak a little bit about that appreciationthat you have now that or as you've
grown, UM, appreciation in termsof that of looking at challenges and seeing
(07:18):
today you're looking at challenges and you'reable to look back and go, hey,
look, I was five years old. I was in a house with
kids with special needs, with brothers, siblings with special needs, mixed race,
home and overcoming my own special needsright, which we'll talk a little
bit more about. What kind ofappreciation does that give you today for the
(07:39):
things that you're doing. I thinkit makes me appreciate all the people that
have been there for me. Definitelymakes me appreciate UM. I would say
life in general as like this.When it's easy, you know, UM
(08:01):
lost loss of times it wasn't easy. Usually there was always a challenge.
And so whenever there isn't really achallenge, I really appreciate that and also
feels a bit weird when there's not. It's like it's like kind of makes
me feel like I think there shouldbe a challenge. So it feels nice
(08:22):
when there's not a bit weird.Yeah, of course you were at with
many other challenges. Um, youryour father passed UM later um in twenty
seventeen or excuse me, in twentyand twelve. And how did you meet
that challenge? UM, So myfather passed, UM. That was I
(08:46):
would say it was pretty difficult becausenow that my mom was the only parent
in the house made him much harderto deal with my brothers as oh she
had to deal with them all alone. It didn't really change outside of the
(09:09):
house. I would say it wasmore inside, like, yeah, kind
of just controlling my brothers. Ididn't really have too much difficulty. I
feel like I feel like I didn'tchange too much. I might have been
a little more quiet, but morethan that, I didn't really change.
(09:31):
I would say, yeah, Imean, it's obviously a challenging time.
But then you went to the RandolphSchool, and my understanding is it kind
of opened up a whole new worldof learning for you and a whole new
set of experiences. I'm interested insome of those experiences that you had and
that you you gained from there.Yeah. So Randolph was much more hands
(09:54):
on learning than other schools. Ithink that helped a lot. Due to
my dyslexia. I had a hardtime reading, so hands on work was
if I could engage on it muchmore. I felt I enjoyed it way
more. It made it easier tolearn. There was a lot of people
(10:18):
that kind of for a bit same. Not everyone had dyslexia, but I
feel like lots of people also rememberall hands on learning, so it sky
around people that were similar to me. That was nice. Tell us more
about your dyslexia and what makes ita little bit different, so it makes
(10:41):
it just hard to read. I'vewhat seems to me is that I have
a much harder time pronouncing things.Also, sometimes when I talk, I
just stumble on my words a lot, which is I'm not sure if it's
because d slexia or something else.Yeah, that's gonna be some public speech
stuff that you and I work on. Um, I don't. Words don't
(11:07):
move around for me. I don't. I don't have that, but really
really just pronouncing words and kind ofum yeah, kind of like a little
blockage there when you're reading. Yeah, So I also have dyslexia, and
(11:28):
so it's my experience is that it'sexhausting to read, right, It's like
it literally reading a paragraph puts meto sleep. Right. What what have
you used in order to overcome someof this challenge? Um? So I
use audio books. Those actually helpa lot because with audio and books I
(11:50):
can actually kind of imagine what's happeninginstead of reading words. Because also sometimes
it happens so I'm reading, isthat kind just I kind of start reading
it, I'm just noting a thingabout what I'm reading. Some just just
disappears. And audiobooks help a lotwith that. It's kind of like a
(12:11):
more of a it's not visual butright, well, you end up creating
your own visualizations through it. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly. We're the
same in terms of that. Andwhen I would read, it would just
I could read three pages and fromnodding off and then from coming back to
right, you're just I don't knowwhat I read. I have no clue
(12:33):
what I just read, and there'snothing there. But I also use audio
books, and I everything that Ihear in the audio book, I actually
it resonates with me. I actuallypick up and it sounds like that's the
same with you. So the RandolphSchool had this hands on learning experience.
When you think about that and goinginto college, which we're going to talk
(12:56):
about that whole journey that took youthere, but just kind of relating the
two, how do you see yourselfas a college student, what do you
what do you think you would lookfor in your professors in your college classes
in order to help or that youcan relate back to the Randolph School.
Well, with college, you're muchmore independent, so I feel like you're
(13:18):
a little more hands on with allthat too. It's not just your parents
I'm babying you through the whole thing, so I think that will make it
a bit easier. Some people mightsee that a difficulty. That's one of
my biggest things I'm looking forward tois that I can I feel like I've
an easier time connecting with my professors. It's kind of like I don't because
(13:43):
lots of times I can know thatmy parents will do it, Like my
parents will ask the teacher or something. I don't have to so I kind
of just let them do it.But it kind of makes it harder to
do that. But knowing that Ihave to do it, this is like
if I don't do it, noone else is going to do it for
(14:03):
me. Like that will be kindof nice. With a change, it's
that's a little more hands on theresponsibility of it all. Yeah. Do
you enjoying responsibility? Um? Iwould say I do. Yeah. Um.
There's some responsibilities that are like kindof annoying. Feeding the animals.
I don't always have to do it. I love them, but their food
(14:26):
smells. So you look forward tonot having to do that very often.
Yeah. Having some college essays thatcan get you out of that kind of
work. Right, Speaking of college, essays. In terms of writing,
how do you how do you connectwith writing when we're talking about dyslexia.
UM, So, I'm not thebest of writers. Um I've I've actually
(14:52):
went to a summer camp throughout fiveor six years that was based off of
um It was sleepaway for about twoweeks and every day you would wake up
and go to a ranting workshop forthree hours. I think that helped a
lot. As I would say,now I'm like an average writer compared to
(15:16):
everyone else. As before, Iwould be very far behind. My essay
grades are much higher now for itwould be like I past this essay.
Now it's hopefully I get like aninety or one. You know some what
you're kind of sharing with me aboutyou know, overcoming dyslexia through audio books
(15:39):
and with the writing. And asyou're talking about, I'm thinking about your
resiliency and your determination to become successful, and I'm interested in where that comes
from in you of like that desireto achieve more. Um well, I
think I've always just want to becomesomething. There was a time where I
(16:04):
thought maybe that I'm I'm actually wantinglike when I grow UF, I might
just start living on the streets orsomething. So I think that put a
lot of fear into my heart.So now I'm like, so I started
working hard on trying to stay awayfrom that and become something great because it
(16:27):
was either for me, it waseither um living on the streets or only
become very successful. There was noin between. I've definitely later I would
say, now I've realized that it'sokay, I'm actually shooting to be more
in between, as I want tobecome a teacher. So I think that's
(16:52):
helped a lot from steering away fromthis fear of being likest or something.
There's this idea of if I'm notsuccessful, if I don't have it all,
then then I get nothing kind ofidea. Where where did this idea
of living on the streets come in? Because that's not something that everybody thinks
(17:18):
about when they don't make it tobe super successful. They might say,
you know, I'm not a millionaire, but you know I might just be
able to get a nine to fivejob. But you're saying living on the
streets. So I'm interested in wherethat perspective came from in your life.
I'm not sure if it was actuallyI've always just been like kind of a
warrior, So I kind of thingof like the worst possible situations. I
(17:45):
think it definitely isn't great. Ithink it does help a bit because like,
if the worst situation comes, thena little bit ready for it.
But if it doesn't, then that'sit makes me feel great. I think
this was kind of an extreme case. So it was preparing for the worst
(18:06):
for you. Yeah, what waspreparing for the best? What did that
look like for you? Being supersuccessful? Um? Well, when I
was young, I kind of,um thought it would just like kind of
just happen, which, by theway, you're still young, like twelve
or something. I was like,it, if it's meant to be,
(18:29):
then it's going to happen. SoI kind of just let things just I
kind of just go with the flow. When I started getting too, like
high school and around after COVID,I started realizing that's not really how it
works and I actually have to putin the work too, sure something.
What's your portrait of success? Um? What does it look like to you
(18:56):
from a career, from any perspective, from just the word itself. Meeting
a goal that you set for yourself. Oh, I've set many goals for
running so that's why also consider myselfas successful runner at least because I've broken
(19:21):
many goals. And yeah, soyou know, going back to this whole
idea of living on the streets tobecoming successful, you went through this challenging
time in your life where you decided, you know what, I'm just gonna
forget it all. I'm going todrop out of running, I'm going to
drop out of school or not goto college, whatever it was. But
(19:42):
you had this life changing moment wherebecause you have this open adoption with your
with your mom, you had anopportunity to go out to California and be
a part of a wedding, andin that experience, from my understanding,
you made a decision to change thisidea of living on the streets and quitting
(20:07):
everything to that middle ground that youwere just sharing with us. Could you
share a little bit about what thatexperience did for you. Of of going
and being a part of your mom'swedding in California, I think that actually
played a really big role in kindof me wanting to become a teacher or
actually becoming successful and working hard becauseshe was becoming she was getting married,
(20:34):
and that kind of is a verybig step. So seeing her face a
challenge like that and grow it kindof inspired me to do the same because
I think that was actually the firstround, the first time I actually mentioned
I wanted to become a teacher incollege to my mom, to your mom
merit, yeah, yeah, andyour other your mom who got married,
(20:56):
your biological mom. What her nameNicole Hole just for our listener's sake here
and Nicole is the one who gotmarried in California. Um, and continue.
Um. The wedding, Like,the actual experience of the wedding was
very nice. Oh, I gotto be the ring bearer. Um.
(21:19):
We're eating something store, some prettygood food there. It's a pretty good
food. You know. There's somethingsomething about the age of sixteen that um
ties this together to some extent.And if you could share a little bit
about that with our audience, UM, in that your mom had you when
(21:41):
you were sixteen, and then asthe ring bearer, you were sixteen.
Yeah, so there's the connection there. Um, was that on your mind
at all while while you were there? I don't think much now it was
more. What was more on mymind was not losing the ring. It's
(22:04):
a good thing to have on yourmind. No, but it wasn't really
on my mind. It might havepopped in once in a while. But
but you were very inspired by thisby seeing her overcome the challenges that she
did in her life and now moveon to get married and start a life
and be happy. Right, yeah, And so that inspired you, and
(22:27):
on your way back, you decided, you know what, I'm gonna go
back to running and I'm gonna applyto college. Tell us about that experience
of going from a student athlete whowas running all the time, who enjoyed
running quit And now we understand,And I'm gonna give you a little perspective
on my understanding of when we quita sport. I play basketball, and
(22:49):
I play weekly every Sunday, everySunday. It's literally my religion. We
call it church. It's not evena joke. That's exactly what we call
it. Sunday hoops. And duringthe week I exercise. I do some
cardio. So I do anywhere fromfour to eight miles on a station every
bike for twenty to forty minutes,depending on the day, depending on time.
(23:12):
And recently I had a bit aninjury and knee injury, and so
I had to stop doing the bike, and so for about four weeks,
I haven't been on the bike,and I'm at Sunday ball and I am
huffing and puffing going up and downthe court. I still played, but
I didn't do my cardio during theweek. And so I bring this back
(23:33):
to you. In that year,you were probably like sixteen seventeen when you
quit. But I bring this backto you, And how did it affect
you taking that much time off fromrunning to then getting up to the speed
to where you're one of the topstudent athletes in your school. Um,
it was really difficult starting a newI added my freshman time for my was
(24:00):
like in eighteen forty and then lifebest junior time was like in twenty two
minutes. Wow. Um. Duringcross country, I mostly just wanted to
quit. I'm gonna be honest,Like I really didn't want to be there.
Um. I think my mom forthis again. She was like,
(24:21):
no, he said, you wantedto become a runner, and even doing
it for so long, Um,just keep going practice. Um. She
kindn't let me quit, which I'mvery thankful for because now I love it
now. Um. And next afterthe next season, I still wasn't great
(24:44):
during indoor um, but it wasstarted becoming more enjoyable unless of a chore
um because the first I would say, it takes the like a couple of
months until you get to the partwhere it's like, wow, this is
this is extremely fun and it's notjust agony the whole time. When was
that switch for you that it switchedfrom being a chore to it actually being
(25:08):
extremely fun as you just said,um. For me, I think it
was around a bit, definitely whenI got into shape a bit. And
also I would say seeing kind ofmy friends also do so well because during
(25:30):
during cross country, I knew acouple of the guys, most of the
guys and they they weren't some ofthem were just as good as me during
that time and they kept going andjust seeing them keep going kind of inspired
me. And I think it startedbecoming less of a chorism. Our bond
(25:53):
kind grew too. It was kindof like a time to run and talk
with my friends. That was Ithink that's when it clicked. That's really
cool. And I think you knowyou're speaking to some commitment there that your
mom's teaching you about committing when youcommit to a goal. And also I
like that you touched on. Asyou got into shape, it started becoming
(26:15):
less of a sture too, Andthat just speaks to momentum, right,
And that's anything in life, isthat as we start building momentum towards something,
it becomes easier and it does becomemore fun. But of course it's
hard in the beginning. Anything that'sworth it is going to be hard in
the beginning, So that makes totalsense. And then I love that you
brought up camaraderie with friends, becauseif we're doing something, to have people
(26:37):
around us that support us, thatare having fun with us. So that's
all key. And I'll give youa quick little story on my mom just
so we can relate here a littlebit. When I was in high school,
I got kicked out of my junioryear for disciplinary problems and I ended
up going to a public I wentfrom Catholic school to public school. So
it was a big transition for me, and I was just depressed, just
(27:00):
putting my head down in class,going to sleep, like not even I
was in present. I was justliterally not even there. I was on
a swim team at at Malloy.We were state champions. I was great
at swimming and I didn't even wantto join a swim team at Bayside High
School. Eventually I did, butI didn't even care. And when I
graduated, which also a whole otherstory, but when I graduated, I
(27:25):
didn't want to go to college.I wasn't going to go to college.
I didn't care to go to college. I had no desire. And a
lot of it had to do withthis story that I was pulling with me
of I got kicked out of school. No college is going to accept me,
nobody, you know, there's nooptions for me. So I'm just
going to quit, you know,similar to you like I'm gonna live on
the streets, right And my motherwas not going to have it, so
(27:48):
she went she enrolled me at NassauCommunity College and she told me, you're
going I think like August sixteenth orsomething like that for placement exams and you're
going And I said, no,I'm not. I'm not going to school
and taking a year off. Iwas like, I'm taking a year off.
You know, that's kind of likewhat we tell everybody, but we
all know what that really means.And on that date, and she made
sure that she was available and sheput me in the car, puts me
(28:12):
in the car. I didn't getin the car. She put me in
the car, drove me to Nassauand I took my exams and everything,
and she was there waiting and droveme home. And I got accepted and
went to Nassau and then ended upgraduating Marris College. But my point that
I'm making here is that sometimes weneed that little kick in the butt from
mom. So I'm glad that youappreciate that. So now I'm gonna just
(28:38):
backtrack a little bit here because Ido want to acknowledge somebody else's special in
your life is your dad, andthat in twenty seventeen, Well, why
don't you share with us what happenedthen? So in twenty seventeen, yeah,
(29:00):
um so, why when my daddied? Um, my mom,
we moved to Beacon or so HudsonValley and she kind of went dating a
bit and she found she eventually foundthis one guy named Tom Flynn. Um
(29:22):
uh. And they did eventually getmarried and he actually adopted me and my
brothers, making at the second adoptionof our lives. Um So, I
was very special. Um. Ithink he also plays a great role in
how I've thought I've gotten Um,he's a bit of a goofy person,
(29:45):
I would say, but I lovehim for that and for all the things
he's done. Yeah, he playsa big role. And uh and if
anybody wants to learn about that littlelove story, they can listen to Merit
Minimiers podcast episode or where we actuallygo down that road and learned so much
more about what happened and her lifechanging experiences. So Tom adopts you guys
(30:11):
in twenty seventeen and you just saidit was special for you. Did did
anything else change in your life fromthat experience from meeting him? And you
mentioned he's goofy. What did headd to your life in terms of a
presence. I think he definitely madeit easier on our whole family. Um,
(30:32):
now that there's someone else to helpwith my brothers and me. Um,
now having a father figure definitely helps. UM. I think he's he's
very loving. Um. It's also, as I said, goofy. Yeah,
(30:52):
some pretty good dad jokes. Iwould say, Well, dad jokes
are important. We need those,you know. I'll tell you what I'm
going to defend dad jokes. Theonly reason why we have dad jokes is
because if we gave you our realjokes, we'd get kicked out of the
room. Like we'd get kicked outof the room. They're too vulgar.
You just can't handle them. I'mtelling you, you just can't handle our
(31:12):
jokes, you know. Going now, what I see as like a through
line for you is that you've hadjust tremendous support in your life and a
tremendous amount of love. But ata certain point that didn't matter because you
had to make a decision and youwent from thinking that you're not going to
go to college to making a decisionI'm going to go to college. And
(31:36):
I want to jump fast forward tothat now, into that moment where you
said, I'm going to college.I want to become a teacher. Mom
gave you all the reasons that it'snot reasons, but she told you what
the reality of it is of becominga teacher, grad school and everything you
knew about dyslexia and the challenges youhad to overcome, and then you went
and started applying to colleges. Tellus about that experience, Well, it's
(32:01):
a very difficult experience. I knewit was important. I didn't like it,
really, it was tedious. Itwas very tedious. Luckily, my
mom and dad were very present forthat, so I think that made it
very easy. I remember applying andthinking more worried that I was am I
(32:27):
getting into any of these I wasvery scary because my grades are pretty bad,
so there was a chance I wouldn'tget to any college. So that
was the worry there. What doyou think so before I well, we
talked about it in the beginning,but what do you think was the reason
(32:47):
that the colleges actually did start acceptingand looking into you as a prospect as
a student. Well after COVID,around junior year of high school, I
started to bring my grades up.I think my first quarter from eventually I
(33:08):
got to nineties, and then senioryear I just kept nineties. So I
think seeing the progress and that Iactually want to go to college, I
think them seeing that and I hadthe capabilities of doing this, they started
expecting me there. I also thinkrunning as I was applying, I was
(33:32):
talking to the coaches from there too. I think that helped a bit.
So when we're thinking about other kidsthat are maybe in your position where they're
having a challenge in school or challengeoutside of school and as you said,
like you didn't have this like norwhat people paint as a normal upbringing.
(33:55):
And there's no such thing as normal, but people pain as the normal upbringing.
You had this, as you said, hard growing up and all these
different challenges that you had to overcome. But yet you always had love and
support. But what was important wasthat people saw progress in you. Um,
they saw that you were capable.And then you had this student athlete
(34:17):
angle as well, where you knowpeople in your in your age group,
if they're looking at to go tocollege or something, being a student athlete,
um, being a part of studentextracurricular activities. If you're not athletic,
maybe it's part of student government orsomething else. Um. What about
art? Is art something that resonateswith you a little bit? Um?
(34:37):
Art definitely resonates with me a bit. It's fine, like the most hands
on thing you can do. Yeah, I'm not a great artist, but
I do really enjoy it. Itake a class that's kind of It's not
just Artum, it's in bossis calledGraphic and Visual Arts U. So it
(35:00):
is a lot of art. Dodraw things mostly mainly on a computer,
not by hand. Right now,we're like doing animation stuff for making things
move, and see will be workingon stop motion. That's pretty cool.
So I think art definitely has helpedme a lot with school. Do you
(35:22):
see any of the stuff that you'redoing now extracurriculus kind of stuff like running
or art or anything else that you'reenjoying as a career for yourself later in
life. And then I know youmentioned teacher, but bringing it together,
I'm not really sure that I seeit as a career too much, as
(35:44):
art is more of a hobby tome, and running I think I'll definitely
keep it as I get older,and I'll keep training, But to make
that a career, I would haveto be on like the Olympic level.
Okay. And and when you thinkabout becoming a teacher, what do you
feel like you'd be teaching or um? I would say math um? Yeah,
(36:09):
mostly math um. There's I couldalso go into like some form like
maybe economics or something teaching that,because that's another choice that I've thought about,
is um majoring in like economics orsome form of business. So I
could just combine those two and teachthat. So is it fair to assume
(36:32):
then? So is math your favoritesubject in school, then, UM,
I'm not really sure if it's actuallymy favorite. I think out of like
English and science, math is myfavorite. Okay, definitely right out of
those, right, Jim and Lunchtake that? Right? Well, I
mean, yes, Jim, Jimand Lunch will always win. We get
(36:53):
to socialize or we get to play. Um, they're always going to win.
But sure, I'm sure Math certainlytakes the cake. Excuse me.
Um is a part of that.So just to kind of conclude this and
go to the colleges, So youwere accepted into eight colleges, and two
(37:15):
of those colleges were your top choices. Would you like to share anything more
about that, about those choices,about who they are, or anything about
that. So the two colleges thatI've accepted, two were barred and Lemoinne
(37:35):
very excited about that. Those werefrom all the other colleges, Like we
weren't sure I would be able toget into like the colleges or like lower
on the lists, like the leastacademically requiring U and Bard and Lemoinne were
like far stretches like UM were likesome They're of tough choices. So getting
(38:00):
into those were. It was verysurprising. Or get seeing that email UM
showed my parents. They teared offof it. It's kind of sweet,
a bit funny. Um, Ithink it was. It was a boost
(38:20):
of confidence too, you know,like all this all my hard work paid
off to see that, the everythingI've done over like the two years working
hard at running and bringing my gradesup seeing actually pay off. Yeah,
payoff. Did you happy dance?I actually did not happy dance. My
parents definitely happy dance, that's forsure. Oh yeah, I'm happy dancing
(38:44):
for you. You mentioned boost ofconfidence. Um, how does that boost
of confidence carry out? I thinkit gives me a little more confidence in
like the future too, knowing thatI can do these things you've and with
some challenges, Um, it will. I won't look at a task and
(39:07):
go I'll probably not going to dothis. I'll look at a task and
go I can. Yeah. SoI also have a hard time with that.
It's nice to see that. Yeah, that that boost of confidence is
real. Tell us about why Bardstands out for you as top choice.
Um, So I really loved thecampus there, that's for sure. But
(39:31):
um, as I mentioned, there'sthis summer camp I went to that was
tons of writing. Um And Ilove the people there that kind of went
there, and Bard is actually kindof similar to it. They have a
lot of writing, which is kindof weird why a dyslexic kid would want
to go to that type of college. But I kind of felt I got
(39:52):
the same vibe. I kind ofI kind of feel like I kind of
belonged there, you know, likeI already knew almost like people that would
be there. Um. I talkedto the coach there. I loved him.
He was awesome, So kind ofjust everything I'm just seemed like it
fit. It's cool how that writingthing kind of came full circle for you
(40:14):
with Bard and then and then ofcourse it is nice to have a coach
that you you connect with, especiallywith running and being such a great passion
of yours. Um So, whenyou think about kids in your position,
we talked a little bit about this, but just from from you, when
you think about kids that are sixteenyears old, that are experiencing hardships in
(40:37):
school, maybe hardships at home,maybe have a tough upbringing, what message
would you like them to hear fromyou? Um So, really give up?
Um, I know a lot ofpep will say that, but it
(40:58):
definitely can get rid hard and thereit can seem that it might be impossible.
And really the only thing you reallyneed is to believe in yourself.
I feel like having others believe inyou is nice, but as long as
you believe that you can do itand you put in the work, you
(41:20):
you'll get through it. Awesome.Well, thank you so much for coming
on. I am very happy foryou into getting into Barred. I know
you're going to have a successful careerahead of you and I appreciate you coming
on today and sharing your story witheveryone. Thank you and thank you for
having me. It was a delightfulexperience cool. Thanks so much. Thank
you for listening to The Michael EspositoShow. For show notes, video clips,
(41:44):
and more episodes, go to MichaelEsposito Inc. Dot com backslash podcast.
Thank you again to our sponsor,dent ten Insurance Services, helping businesses
get the right insurance for all theirinsurance needs. Visit dent ten dot io
to get a quote that's d Nt N dot io and remember when you
(42:06):
buy an insurance policy from Denton,you're giving back on a global scale.
This episode was produced by Uncle Mikeat the iHeart Studios in Poughkeepsie. Special
thanks to Lara Rodrean for the opportunityand my team at Michaels Posito in
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