April 5, 2025 • 23 mins
Childhood trauma doesn't simply vanish when the moment passes—it silently shapes our lives for years, even decades. Standing at the edge of a high school swimming pool at 14, my heart pounding as I faced away from the water, I was about to confront a fear that had controlled me since I nearly drowned at age five.
For years, I'd expertly masked my terror of water. I hid behind the stereotype that "Black people don't swim," creating a convenient shield to avoid pools, water parks, or anything involving submersion. This fear wasn't loud or obvious—it whispered like wisdom, sounding protective while actually keeping me confined to a dark, metaphorical crawl space beneath my life. "Don't do it. Stay away from that. Remember what happened?" These quiet thoughts disguised as self-preservation were actually preventing my growth.
My journey included a traumatic fourth-grade swimming class where a teacher physically forced me into deep water, reopening old wounds and reinforcing my fear. But standing on that high school pool edge years later, when instructed to take one step backward into the unknown waters, something remarkable happened: I didn't panic. Though I lacked swimming skills, I managed without terror for the first time. This breakthrough revealed that my fear wasn't just about drowning—it was about failure, appearing weak, and not being enough.
What fears have been silently shaping your life? What limitations have you accepted that were never yours to begin with? Your traumas aren't meant to diminish you—they're meant to make you unique, like an uncut gem. Share your story of what fears have been holding you back. Together, we can knock off the dust that prevents us from shining as the rare, valuable, one-of-one gems we truly are.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I was 14 years old.
I was standing at the edge of apool.
My feet are on the very edge.
I'm facing away from the pooltowards a wall and I'm being
told to step backwards.
I'm looking at everybody elsenext to me.
(00:23):
I'm pretending I'm chill, I'mgood, pretending like I was just
at everybody else next to me.
I'm pretending I'm chill, I'mgood, pretending like I was just
like everybody else.
But my chest was tight Becausethat five year old version of me
, he never left, he never gothealed, he just got better at
hiding.
(00:43):
Look, if you didn't catch partone.
I talked about the day that Idrowned Shall, I say almost
drowned.
Really key episode talks aboutthe most traumatic day of my
life and right now I'm about to.
I want to follow up on that.
I want to go into part twobecause I want to talk about how
(01:07):
it never ends there.
A lot of us have beentraumatized, we've been through
some serious experiences, but itdon't end there For me, the
story that I told y'all lastepisode that happened when I was
five years old.
I hadn't even started school yet.
I was like barely gettingstarted in life.
(01:33):
Like I told you, I didn't evenhave memories.
So when my life flashed beforemy eyes.
It was very little, it was ashort film that flashed before
my eyes.
But after that day, after thatday right, there was so much
that happened.
I drowned.
I woke up on the side of thepool.
I was getting driven home bymyself with a man who I only
(01:55):
knew as a friend of my uncle,and it turns out I come to find
out later he's a child molester.
All of these things.
Go back and listen to episodeone if you really want all the
details.
But you know what that did tome.
You know what that day did tome and I didn't even realize
this until years, decades later.
(02:15):
It embedded so deeply insidethis fear, a serious fear.
Now you know, I know many ofy'all listening to this, I'm
pretty sure you've heard likethe stereotype of black people
don't swim, and you know thatcan happen.
That can happen.
(02:35):
You know what I mean,especially back in the 80s.
That can happen.
But for me, that stereotype orthat trope became a nice hiding
place for me.
So from the age of six, seven,eight, you know it was just like
oh, you don't swim.
Oh, yeah, that's right, blackpeople don't swim.
(02:56):
It was a safe haven for me tojust crawl under there.
I was pretending I was maskingit.
I was.
You know that was a convenientway for me to be like.
You know what?
Black people don't swim.
Matter of fact, black peopledon't swim and I'm one of those,
right, I don't swim.
I avoided all of those watersituations.
You go to a water park, you godown a water slide, you you get
(03:18):
splashed with water.
Here you go down, we would goto Geauga Lake, which is an
amusement park in Cleveland, andwe would ride the roller
coaster.
It was like a log rollercoaster.
It had like one little hill andwhen you get to the bottom of
the hill, there's water therethat was splashing.
I wouldn't even ride that.
No, nothing, even close towater submersion.
(03:41):
And this is years, years, years,and this is years, years, years
, and you know, I became adeptat navigating that crawl space.
Right, if I'm building a life,if you can imagine my life being
built as like a new house,right, it's a new build that's
(04:01):
going up.
You get to see it, you see thewalls, you see the drywall, you
get to see that and you see thatthere's a crawl space
underneath.
I was living there as thishouse was being built up.
Fear made me not even able tolive in that house that was up
there.
I was shrunken.
I was in that dark crawl space.
(04:23):
Here's the thing People thinkfear is loud.
Nah, fear is so quiet.
It's in your head.
It's in that cellar, that crawlspace.
It sounds like wisdom, right, ata whisper.
Don't do it.
Stay away from that.
Remember what happened.
It sounds like sound wisdom andit feels like comfort.
(04:48):
Right, that's what it feelslike when you're in it, but
really it's killing somethinginside of you.
It's keeping something insideof you from developing, right,
so for me and I know, for all ofyou, because this story is
really a mirror it's not allabout me, it's not really even
(05:11):
about me at all, right, but Iknow a lot of y'all might be
able to relate to this.
So when did I realize that?
That the fear was stillcontrolling me, because this
went on for a long time?
Man, like we moved to othercities.
I made new friends.
We would go.
Uh, we moved to a city calledEuclid, ohio, right, named after
(05:31):
the, the mathematician, and oneof the big things about Euclid
is it's more diverse than whereI had lived, right, like it was,
I would say, probably about 30%black at the time that I moved
there, and maybe 25, maybe,maybe right, and it was swimming
, was big.
(05:52):
You know, there was a lot ofthings that were big in my age
range eight, nine, 10.
It was a lot of things that waslike baseball, little league
baseball, swimming every day,things that I never had any
exposure to.
And you know, these are thethings that I really wanted.
(06:12):
I wanted that suburban life.
I wanted us to feel like wemade it out of the hood, that we
were not just condemned anddestitute.
I wanted that, but over theyears, you know, as you kind of
ran counter.
The reason I wanted thissuburban life was because I
wanted to be normal, I wanted tofit in, but I couldn't fit in
(06:33):
because I couldn't do a lot ofthe things that people were just
easily doing, right, peoplewere just running and jumping in
a pool.
I just I couldn't do it in apool.
I just I couldn't do it.
I was frozen Right and therewas no heroic moment that got me
out of this.
I didn't uh work on this and,you know, all of a sudden, this
(06:55):
is going to be, uh, something Ican triumphantly run and all of
a sudden, oh, I victoriouslyjumped over it.
No, you know what happened?
God put me right at the edge,right at the edge.
So I made it all the way.
Oh wait, first of all listen,when we moved to Euclid and it
(07:17):
was like all of the swimming, Imade it to like fourth grade and
we had swimming class.
Imagine that swimming class inschool this was something I
never even knew existed, right.
So we, we get our class, we goin to take swimming.
And I made some friends.
(07:38):
Man, I'm like I'm going for thesuburban normal life, man, I'm
trying to go for it right.
So I got some friends, I gotour best friend, I got a best
friend and, you know, we startcalling ourselves cousins.
You know how black folks do welike to pretend that we're
cousins One of the things.
Maybe I'll do an episode aboutit later.
But you know, I had this bestfriend.
(07:59):
We pretended we were cousinsand we were in the same class
and it was time to go takeswimming and he could swim.
I couldn't.
He had done it before.
I hadn't.
He grew up there, I hadn't.
So we go to take it and I'mjust, I'm thinking it's going to
(08:21):
work out.
I don't know, I just want.
I'm going through all themotions.
I don't know how to swim, butI'm figuring it out.
The first day the class goesinto the pool area.
You know we're wearing ourswimming gear and we don't have
any flotation devices oranything like that.
I mean, nah, it's like 1986,maybe 1986?
(08:44):
Yeah, we don't have anyflotation devices.
I'm 10 years old, 9, 10.
Yeah, I'm actually I'm nine, Iwas in the fourth grade.
And the teacher decides yeah,I'm going to have the whole
class line up on next to thepool and each one by one, I want
(09:04):
you all to walk out onto thediving board over the 10 feet of
water, the deep end.
I want you to walk out overthere and then I'm going to be
standing there with you right onthe edge of the diving board
(09:24):
and I want you to jump in.
I want you to dive in.
And so the kids were like okay,cool, everybody, one boom, boom
, boom, boom.
It's probably only like 20 ofus in the class.
I am like deathly afraid, butI'm also too.
I'm so afraid that I can't sayI'm afraid that makes sense.
So I'm really just like locked.
(09:46):
I'm locked into this mode, andso I'm like I'm letting people
cut me right, like normally as akid you don't let people sponge
you in line.
You know, back to the 80s theycalled it cutting and sponging.
I'm letting everybody cut infront of me.
I'm like you go, you go, you go.
So finally, like me and my bestfriend, we were like the last
two, and this dude has swambefore.
(10:10):
But what?
I guess my fear rubbed off onhim because all of a sudden he's
scared too.
So we're like the last two andhe's like okay, come on.
So my best friend walks upthere and he gets to the end of
the plank and he's like hey, youcome too.
The teacher's like you come too.
(10:31):
So we're both out there.
He's like okay, do you needhelp?
Do you need me to lower youdown into the water and my best
friend's like, ah.
And he just like turns and runsaway.
He runs off of the diving boardand away I don't even know
where.
He went, like to the lockerroom or something right.
And I'm looking at him run likewhat, that's what I want to do.
And so I turned back to theteacher and he sees it in my
(10:53):
face Like he knows I'm about tobolt.
So he grabs me, likeaggressively, and he's like, no,
don't run.
And I'm like, no, I want to gowith him.
I want to go with my bestfriend and I'm squirming, trying
to get out of his grasp and heis holding me so tight that his
(11:17):
fingernail cuts me.
He cuts my hand and I'mbleeding.
He cuts my hand and I'mbleeding and he grabs me and he
holds me over the water and helets me go and I fall in and I'm
just.
I'm back.
I'm five years old again.
(11:39):
It's playing out exactly thesame way.
I have no skills, no ability toregulate my panic.
I just started flailing Boom,boom, boom, except this time.
This time, the only differenceis I didn't give up.
I did not just breathe in theair to breathe in the water.
(12:01):
I kept going, I held my breathand I flung my arms around and
legs around and I did everythingI thought I could remember from
TV.
And the next thing, you know,my arm hit something solid and
you know how survival instinct,you know in your mind, is
(12:22):
amazing.
My arm hits the wall of thepool and I grab that wall and I
pull myself out and I'm lookingat, I'm looking at the teacher
like dude, you literally haveviolated me and I don't want to
go to this school anymore and Iran out.
(12:43):
I'm pretty sure this is one ofthose days like I have kids now
and sometimes, you know,teachers will call me and say,
hey, your kid had a bad day.
They had a little, you know, alittle emotional outburst.
You know they were struggling.
Today, I'm pretty sure this isone of those times where they
just chalked it up to mestruggling right, struggling
(13:04):
right.
I get home and to me this hasre-triggered all of those
feelings from when I was five.
It's all of it Like, as far asI'm concerned, this man who
threw me into this pool was achild molester, an abuser.
That's what I felt.
I'm bleeding, I'm bleeding.
(13:25):
That's what I felt, and I wenthome and I told my mom and I'm
crying and it's playing outexactly like that day, and she
told me you know what?
We're moving and I didn't wantto tell you yet, but we're
actually.
You're not going to be goingback to that school, we're
(13:47):
moving to another city.
We're moving to another city,we're moving to Cleveland
Heights.
A lot of y'all may know HeightsKelsey Brothers, jason Travis.
Yeah, you're going to be goingto those schools.
So you know what?
We were actually going to pullyou out next week, but we're
(14:07):
just going to pull you out rightnow.
You're going to go to Heights.
So I got to Cleveland Heights.
I went to an elementary schoolcalled Noble Elementary and they
didn't have swimming classesand so I had a stay of execution
, if you will.
I didn't have to deal with thatfear.
(14:31):
But I felt really good aboutthat.
I felt like it was a victory.
I felt like the weight waslifted, but really it was just
delay.
It was really just delay.
So how did I come out of this?
You know what?
I got absorbed in the Heights.
I loved Heights.
(14:52):
Heights is still where my heartis.
Shout out to the New Heightspodcast.
I went through fourth grade,fifth grade, sixth grade,
seventh grade, eighth grade, andthen I got to Cleveland Heights
High School, the legendaryHeights High.
The year is 1990.
I'm feeling myself, I got ahigh top fade probably.
(15:17):
I'm like I think it's got likea blonde streak in it.
I'm like I'm there, I'm hittingon all cylinders.
We get there.
I'm like you know what?
I think I got like a polka dot.
I had like a polka dot rayonshirt my first day of school.
We rocking man, we going and goto sign up for the classes and
(15:41):
it's like gym class swimming.
Ain't that how God work, gymclass swimming?
So first thing I have to do inthis school is take swimming
class.
So again, we get our swimminggear on swimming trunks, no
(16:05):
flotation devices, much biggerpool this time, because it's a
high school pool.
It's a much bigger pool thistime because it's a high school
pool.
They tell us to take a showerbefore you come out.
Hey, you have to be drippingwet when you come out and it's 8
o'clock in the morning.
It's cold, the lockers aredingy and there's no hot water
Coming out.
We're shivering, we're freezing.
(16:26):
It's like I'm in puberty.
I'm smack dab in the middle ofpuberty.
I'm surrounded by all of thesegirls who I have I don't even
know if I have crushes on them,right Like it's just a whole new
world.
And the teacher says I want youall to line up on the edge of
the pool.
I want you to face the wallaway from the pool.
(16:56):
I want your heels hanging overthe water.
And we all did that.
We all lined up side by side.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom,boom, boom.
All the way down.
And the teacher started talking.
He's going in, this is whatyou're going to learn, this is
what I'm going to do, this is myapproach.
This is blah, blah, blah, boom,boom, boom, boom.
And then at the end he says nowI want you to take one step
(17:23):
backwards.
And everybody takes a stepbackwards, including me, and I
fall in.
I don't know where I'm at.
I don't know if I'm in theshallow, I don't know if I'm in
the middle, I don't know if I'min the deep, I don't know if
this whole pool is deep, I don'tknow.
I just I'm in and I did notpanic.
(17:48):
And I did not panic.
I didn't have skills still, butI swerved around, grabbed that
wall, held myself up, kickedaround a little bit.
(18:15):
Man, if that five-year-oldversion of me wasn't just afraid
of water.
He was afraid of failure.
He was afraid of looking weak,he was afraid of not being
enough.
And that same fear has startedshaping me.
And now here I was with thefirst opportunity to really
break free of that root.
The root I want to ask y'allright now what's the fear that's
(18:43):
been shaping your life insilence?
What lie did you internalize solong ago that you stopped even
questioning it?
Guess what?
I passed that class, that, thatswimming class, all of the
tests.
I dove in the water, got to thebottom, grabbed a brick.
I swam laps.
I did all of that.
I did the dead man's float.
We did all of that.
(19:03):
I think I got a C in the class.
I wasn't great, but I did it.
How many of y'all are operatingright now with limitations that
were never yours to begin with?
I want to speak to youridentity right now.
You are a gem, you are adiamond, you are one of one, but
(19:25):
maybe you accepted a cut thatwasn't made to help you shine,
maybe you just tried to fit in,be another jewel.
My call to you right now ifthis episode sparked something
in you, dm me, drop me a commentin the LinkedIn post that I'm
(19:48):
going to share today.
I'm going to share one.
I may share another one in acouple of days.
I would love to hear what oldfear have you had?
Maybe you still have, andyou're done.
Letting it lead you.
You're done, you're done.
What is it?
What's had you by the collarholding you back?
What have you not recognized asan actual strength?
(20:13):
Guess what?
The fact that I went throughthat trauma, the fact that I had
to get pushed off of thatdiving board.
I was bleeding and still showback up, and in ninth grade I
took that step backwards andovercame that fear.
That's a one-of-one journey.
(20:34):
Ain't nobody else been throughthat.
That's a journey that Godallowed me to go through, and
there's strength that I can getfrom that.
I want you to start to realizethat you are one of one too, and
the things that you've beenthrough, they're not meant to
strangle you around the neck to.
And the things that you've beenthrough, they're not meant to
strangle you around the neck,they meant to make you rare,
(21:01):
make you an uncut gem.
And so next week, we're goingto start talking about the
stories that we tell ourselvesat work and how some of those
stories are still haunted bysome childhood voices.
All right, we're going to startto overcome this stuff.
Y'all.
We knocking this dust off of usso we can shine.
We're going to show the worldthat we are gems, valuable,
precious, one of one.
(21:23):
All right, thank you forjoining me.
Look on the way out.
Enjoy a little bit of music.
This is one of my joints, oneof my favorite joints.
Listen to this man.
This joint is called Lord haveMercy.
This is by me.
Maybe you can toss me on yourSpotify list or your title list
or wherever you listen to music.
It'll give you a little30-second taste.
(21:44):
All right, I appreciate it.
Y'all, I love y'all.
Keep rocking, keep being rareon purpose.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
Where I'm from, but I can't go home.
I got to break some water tomake my own home.
I'm skilled, so I build andpaint my own home.
(22:15):
But this young world got for anold soul.
I hear my train coming and I'mjust a hobo.
I'ma catch the boxcar and justhope to hold on, cause it's
alright.
It's alright Trying to makesense out of life and find peace
, but I can't.
Trying to make sense out oflife and find peace, but I can't
.
Trying to make a masterpiecewhile the canvas is blank.
(22:35):
So I bought me an easel andsome buckets of paint, cause
it's alright.
So as I flip through the pagesand I read through the script I
don't care about the credits atthe end of the flick I'ma try
and steal every fucking scenethat I'm in, cause I'm so good,
it's alright.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
(22:55):
Lord, have mercy.
Mercy on my soul.
And when I do get married, oh,she may not know, but my wife is
gonna save my soul.
And when I do get married, oh,she may not know, but my wife is
gonna save my life.
Outro Music.
I was 14 years old.
I was standing at the edge of apool.
My feet are on the very edge.
I'm facing away from the pooltowards a wall and I'm being
told to step backwards.
I'm looking at everybody elsenext to me.
(00:23):
I'm pretending I'm chill, I'mgood, pretending like I was just
at everybody else next to me.
I'm pretending I'm chill, I'mgood, pretending like I was just
like everybody else.
But my chest was tight Becausethat five year old version of me
, he never left, he never gothealed, he just got better at
hiding.
(00:43):
Look, if you didn't catch partone.
I talked about the day that Idrowned Shall, I say almost
drowned.
Really key episode talks aboutthe most traumatic day of my
life and right now I'm about to.
I want to follow up on that.
I want to go into part twobecause I want to talk about how
(01:07):
it never ends there.
A lot of us have beentraumatized, we've been through
some serious experiences, but itdon't end there For me, the
story that I told y'all lastepisode that happened when I was
five years old.
I hadn't even started school yet.
I was like barely gettingstarted in life.
(01:33):
Like I told you, I didn't evenhave memories.
So when my life flashed beforemy eyes.
It was very little, it was ashort film that flashed before
my eyes.
But after that day, after thatday right, there was so much
that happened.
I drowned.
I woke up on the side of thepool.
I was getting driven home bymyself with a man who I only
(01:55):
knew as a friend of my uncle,and it turns out I come to find
out later he's a child molester.
All of these things.
Go back and listen to episodeone if you really want all the
details.
But you know what that did tome.
You know what that day did tome and I didn't even realize
this until years, decades later.
(02:15):
It embedded so deeply insidethis fear, a serious fear.
Now you know, I know many ofy'all listening to this, I'm
pretty sure you've heard likethe stereotype of black people
don't swim, and you know thatcan happen.
That can happen.
(02:35):
You know what I mean,especially back in the 80s.
That can happen.
But for me, that stereotype orthat trope became a nice hiding
place for me.
So from the age of six, seven,eight, you know it was just like
oh, you don't swim.
Oh, yeah, that's right, blackpeople don't swim.
(02:56):
It was a safe haven for me tojust crawl under there.
I was pretending I was maskingit.
I was.
You know that was a convenientway for me to be like.
You know what?
Black people don't swim.
Matter of fact, black peopledon't swim and I'm one of those,
right, I don't swim.
I avoided all of those watersituations.
You go to a water park, you godown a water slide, you you get
(03:18):
splashed with water.
Here you go down, we would goto Geauga Lake, which is an
amusement park in Cleveland, andwe would ride the roller
coaster.
It was like a log rollercoaster.
It had like one little hill andwhen you get to the bottom of
the hill, there's water therethat was splashing.
I wouldn't even ride that.
No, nothing, even close towater submersion.
(03:41):
And this is years, years, years,and this is years, years, years
, and you know, I became adeptat navigating that crawl space.
Right, if I'm building a life,if you can imagine my life being
built as like a new house,right, it's a new build that's
(04:01):
going up.
You get to see it, you see thewalls, you see the drywall, you
get to see that and you see thatthere's a crawl space
underneath.
I was living there as thishouse was being built up.
Fear made me not even able tolive in that house that was up
there.
I was shrunken.
I was in that dark crawl space.
(04:23):
Here's the thing People thinkfear is loud.
Nah, fear is so quiet.
It's in your head.
It's in that cellar, that crawlspace.
It sounds like wisdom, right, ata whisper.
Don't do it.
Stay away from that.
Remember what happened.
It sounds like sound wisdom andit feels like comfort.
(04:48):
Right, that's what it feelslike when you're in it, but
really it's killing somethinginside of you.
It's keeping something insideof you from developing, right,
so for me and I know, for all ofyou, because this story is
really a mirror it's not allabout me, it's not really even
(05:11):
about me at all, right, but Iknow a lot of y'all might be
able to relate to this.
So when did I realize that?
That the fear was stillcontrolling me, because this
went on for a long time?
Man, like we moved to othercities.
I made new friends.
We would go.
Uh, we moved to a city calledEuclid, ohio, right, named after
(05:31):
the, the mathematician, and oneof the big things about Euclid
is it's more diverse than whereI had lived, right, like it was,
I would say, probably about 30%black at the time that I moved
there, and maybe 25, maybe,maybe right, and it was swimming
, was big.
(05:52):
You know, there was a lot ofthings that were big in my age
range eight, nine, 10.
It was a lot of things that waslike baseball, little league
baseball, swimming every day,things that I never had any
exposure to.
And you know, these are thethings that I really wanted.
(06:12):
I wanted that suburban life.
I wanted us to feel like wemade it out of the hood, that we
were not just condemned anddestitute.
I wanted that, but over theyears, you know, as you kind of
ran counter.
The reason I wanted thissuburban life was because I
wanted to be normal, I wanted tofit in, but I couldn't fit in
(06:33):
because I couldn't do a lot ofthe things that people were just
easily doing, right, peoplewere just running and jumping in
a pool.
I just I couldn't do it in apool.
I just I couldn't do it.
I was frozen Right and therewas no heroic moment that got me
out of this.
I didn't uh work on this and,you know, all of a sudden, this
(06:55):
is going to be, uh, something Ican triumphantly run and all of
a sudden, oh, I victoriouslyjumped over it.
No, you know what happened?
God put me right at the edge,right at the edge.
So I made it all the way.
Oh wait, first of all listen,when we moved to Euclid and it
(07:17):
was like all of the swimming, Imade it to like fourth grade and
we had swimming class.
Imagine that swimming class inschool this was something I
never even knew existed, right.
So we, we get our class, we goin to take swimming.
And I made some friends.
(07:38):
Man, I'm like I'm going for thesuburban normal life, man, I'm
trying to go for it right.
So I got some friends, I gotour best friend, I got a best
friend and, you know, we startcalling ourselves cousins.
You know how black folks do welike to pretend that we're
cousins One of the things.
Maybe I'll do an episode aboutit later.
But you know, I had this bestfriend.
(07:59):
We pretended we were cousinsand we were in the same class
and it was time to go takeswimming and he could swim.
I couldn't.
He had done it before.
I hadn't.
He grew up there, I hadn't.
So we go to take it and I'mjust, I'm thinking it's going to
(08:21):
work out.
I don't know, I just want.
I'm going through all themotions.
I don't know how to swim, butI'm figuring it out.
The first day the class goesinto the pool area.
You know we're wearing ourswimming gear and we don't have
any flotation devices oranything like that.
I mean, nah, it's like 1986,maybe 1986?
(08:44):
Yeah, we don't have anyflotation devices.
I'm 10 years old, 9, 10.
Yeah, I'm actually I'm nine, Iwas in the fourth grade.
And the teacher decides yeah,I'm going to have the whole
class line up on next to thepool and each one by one, I want
(09:04):
you all to walk out onto thediving board over the 10 feet of
water, the deep end.
I want you to walk out overthere and then I'm going to be
standing there with you right onthe edge of the diving board
(09:24):
and I want you to jump in.
I want you to dive in.
And so the kids were like okay,cool, everybody, one boom, boom
, boom, boom.
It's probably only like 20 ofus in the class.
I am like deathly afraid, butI'm also too.
I'm so afraid that I can't sayI'm afraid that makes sense.
So I'm really just like locked.
(09:46):
I'm locked into this mode, andso I'm like I'm letting people
cut me right, like normally as akid you don't let people sponge
you in line.
You know, back to the 80s theycalled it cutting and sponging.
I'm letting everybody cut infront of me.
I'm like you go, you go, you go.
So finally, like me and my bestfriend, we were like the last
two, and this dude has swambefore.
(10:10):
But what?
I guess my fear rubbed off onhim because all of a sudden he's
scared too.
So we're like the last two andhe's like okay, come on.
So my best friend walks upthere and he gets to the end of
the plank and he's like hey, youcome too.
The teacher's like you come too.
(10:31):
So we're both out there.
He's like okay, do you needhelp?
Do you need me to lower youdown into the water and my best
friend's like, ah.
And he just like turns and runsaway.
He runs off of the diving boardand away I don't even know
where.
He went, like to the lockerroom or something right.
And I'm looking at him run likewhat, that's what I want to do.
And so I turned back to theteacher and he sees it in my
(10:53):
face Like he knows I'm about tobolt.
So he grabs me, likeaggressively, and he's like, no,
don't run.
And I'm like, no, I want to gowith him.
I want to go with my bestfriend and I'm squirming, trying
to get out of his grasp and heis holding me so tight that his
(11:17):
fingernail cuts me.
He cuts my hand and I'mbleeding.
He cuts my hand and I'mbleeding and he grabs me and he
holds me over the water and helets me go and I fall in and I'm
just.
I'm back.
I'm five years old again.
(11:39):
It's playing out exactly thesame way.
I have no skills, no ability toregulate my panic.
I just started flailing Boom,boom, boom, except this time.
This time, the only differenceis I didn't give up.
I did not just breathe in theair to breathe in the water.
(12:01):
I kept going, I held my breathand I flung my arms around and
legs around and I did everythingI thought I could remember from
TV.
And the next thing, you know,my arm hit something solid and
you know how survival instinct,you know in your mind, is
(12:22):
amazing.
My arm hits the wall of thepool and I grab that wall and I
pull myself out and I'm lookingat, I'm looking at the teacher
like dude, you literally haveviolated me and I don't want to
go to this school anymore and Iran out.
(12:43):
I'm pretty sure this is one ofthose days like I have kids now
and sometimes, you know,teachers will call me and say,
hey, your kid had a bad day.
They had a little, you know, alittle emotional outburst.
You know they were struggling.
Today, I'm pretty sure this isone of those times where they
just chalked it up to mestruggling right, struggling
(13:04):
right.
I get home and to me this hasre-triggered all of those
feelings from when I was five.
It's all of it Like, as far asI'm concerned, this man who
threw me into this pool was achild molester, an abuser.
That's what I felt.
I'm bleeding, I'm bleeding.
(13:25):
That's what I felt, and I wenthome and I told my mom and I'm
crying and it's playing outexactly like that day, and she
told me you know what?
We're moving and I didn't wantto tell you yet, but we're
actually.
You're not going to be goingback to that school, we're
(13:47):
moving to another city.
We're moving to another city,we're moving to Cleveland
Heights.
A lot of y'all may know HeightsKelsey Brothers, jason Travis.
Yeah, you're going to be goingto those schools.
So you know what?
We were actually going to pullyou out next week, but we're
(14:07):
just going to pull you out rightnow.
You're going to go to Heights.
So I got to Cleveland Heights.
I went to an elementary schoolcalled Noble Elementary and they
didn't have swimming classesand so I had a stay of execution
, if you will.
I didn't have to deal with thatfear.
(14:31):
But I felt really good aboutthat.
I felt like it was a victory.
I felt like the weight waslifted, but really it was just
delay.
It was really just delay.
So how did I come out of this?
You know what?
I got absorbed in the Heights.
I loved Heights.
(14:52):
Heights is still where my heartis.
Shout out to the New Heightspodcast.
I went through fourth grade,fifth grade, sixth grade,
seventh grade, eighth grade, andthen I got to Cleveland Heights
High School, the legendaryHeights High.
The year is 1990.
I'm feeling myself, I got ahigh top fade probably.
(15:17):
I'm like I think it's got likea blonde streak in it.
I'm like I'm there, I'm hittingon all cylinders.
We get there.
I'm like you know what?
I think I got like a polka dot.
I had like a polka dot rayonshirt my first day of school.
We rocking man, we going and goto sign up for the classes and
(15:41):
it's like gym class swimming.
Ain't that how God work, gymclass swimming?
So first thing I have to do inthis school is take swimming
class.
So again, we get our swimminggear on swimming trunks, no
(16:05):
flotation devices, much biggerpool this time, because it's a
high school pool.
It's a much bigger pool thistime because it's a high school
pool.
They tell us to take a showerbefore you come out.
Hey, you have to be drippingwet when you come out and it's 8
o'clock in the morning.
It's cold, the lockers aredingy and there's no hot water
Coming out.
We're shivering, we're freezing.
(16:26):
It's like I'm in puberty.
I'm smack dab in the middle ofpuberty.
I'm surrounded by all of thesegirls who I have I don't even
know if I have crushes on them,right Like it's just a whole new
world.
And the teacher says I want youall to line up on the edge of
the pool.
I want you to face the wallaway from the pool.
(16:56):
I want your heels hanging overthe water.
And we all did that.
We all lined up side by side.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom,boom, boom.
All the way down.
And the teacher started talking.
He's going in, this is whatyou're going to learn, this is
what I'm going to do, this is myapproach.
This is blah, blah, blah, boom,boom, boom, boom.
And then at the end he says nowI want you to take one step
(17:23):
backwards.
And everybody takes a stepbackwards, including me, and I
fall in.
I don't know where I'm at.
I don't know if I'm in theshallow, I don't know if I'm in
the middle, I don't know if I'min the deep, I don't know if
this whole pool is deep, I don'tknow.
I just I'm in and I did notpanic.
(17:48):
And I did not panic.
I didn't have skills still, butI swerved around, grabbed that
wall, held myself up, kickedaround a little bit.
(18:15):
Man, if that five-year-oldversion of me wasn't just afraid
of water.
He was afraid of failure.
He was afraid of looking weak,he was afraid of not being
enough.
And that same fear has startedshaping me.
And now here I was with thefirst opportunity to really
break free of that root.
The root I want to ask y'allright now what's the fear that's
(18:43):
been shaping your life insilence?
What lie did you internalize solong ago that you stopped even
questioning it?
Guess what?
I passed that class, that, thatswimming class, all of the
tests.
I dove in the water, got to thebottom, grabbed a brick.
I swam laps.
I did all of that.
I did the dead man's float.
We did all of that.
(19:03):
I think I got a C in the class.
I wasn't great, but I did it.
How many of y'all are operatingright now with limitations that
were never yours to begin with?
I want to speak to youridentity right now.
You are a gem, you are adiamond, you are one of one, but
(19:25):
maybe you accepted a cut thatwasn't made to help you shine,
maybe you just tried to fit in,be another jewel.
My call to you right now ifthis episode sparked something
in you, dm me, drop me a commentin the LinkedIn post that I'm
(19:48):
going to share today.
I'm going to share one.
I may share another one in acouple of days.
I would love to hear what oldfear have you had?
Maybe you still have, andyou're done.
Letting it lead you.
You're done, you're done.
What is it?
What's had you by the collarholding you back?
What have you not recognized asan actual strength?
(20:13):
Guess what?
The fact that I went throughthat trauma, the fact that I had
to get pushed off of thatdiving board.
I was bleeding and still showback up, and in ninth grade I
took that step backwards andovercame that fear.
That's a one-of-one journey.
(20:34):
Ain't nobody else been throughthat.
That's a journey that Godallowed me to go through, and
there's strength that I can getfrom that.
I want you to start to realizethat you are one of one too, and
the things that you've beenthrough, they're not meant to
strangle you around the neck to.
And the things that you've beenthrough, they're not meant to
strangle you around the neck,they meant to make you rare,
(21:01):
make you an uncut gem.
And so next week, we're goingto start talking about the
stories that we tell ourselvesat work and how some of those
stories are still haunted bysome childhood voices.
All right, we're going to startto overcome this stuff.
Y'all.
We knocking this dust off of usso we can shine.
We're going to show the worldthat we are gems, valuable,
precious, one of one.
(21:23):
All right, thank you forjoining me.
Look on the way out.
Enjoy a little bit of music.
This is one of my joints, oneof my favorite joints.
Listen to this man.
This joint is called Lord haveMercy.
This is by me.
Maybe you can toss me on yourSpotify list or your title list
or wherever you listen to music.
It'll give you a little30-second taste.
(21:44):
All right, I appreciate it.
Y'all, I love y'all.
Keep rocking, keep being rareon purpose.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
Where I'm from, but I can't go home.
I got to break some water tomake my own home.
I'm skilled, so I build andpaint my own home.
(22:15):
But this young world got for anold soul.
I hear my train coming and I'mjust a hobo.
I'ma catch the boxcar and justhope to hold on, cause it's
alright.
It's alright Trying to makesense out of life and find peace
, but I can't.
Trying to make sense out oflife and find peace, but I can't
.
Trying to make a masterpiecewhile the canvas is blank.
(22:35):
So I bought me an easel andsome buckets of paint, cause
it's alright.
So as I flip through the pagesand I read through the script I
don't care about the credits atthe end of the flick I'ma try
and steal every fucking scenethat I'm in, cause I'm so good,
it's alright.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
(22:55):
Lord, have mercy.
Mercy on my soul.
And when I do get married, oh,she may not know, but my wife is
gonna save my soul.
And when I do get married, oh,she may not know, but my wife is
gonna save my life.
Outro Music.
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