you have a high level of self-awareness
when you were injured and sitting in the
hospital you started to think about what
it is that you want to do with your life
and you're still a teenager at that
point right yeah I mean it wasn't
actually so much what I wanted to do
with my life it was more of the big
question of Who am I
oh okay that's an easy question yeah
yeah I got that yeah that's fine you
know I'm 16 of course I know who I am so
yeah so when you're in a situation you
know at that point in time I've had
thousands of people at my high school
was really large I mean when played a
note large division and had thousands of
people screaming my name at an early age
you know I'm feeling on top of the world
you have thousands of people changing
name home a whole lot at football games
and you're all there and then when that
all goes away you have a little bit of
an identity crisis I mean some people go
through this and near-death experiences
but I started to regress myself when I
was in the hospital bed alone crying
thinking that okay my life is done I you
don't listen to me I'm done it was a
painful experience but when I was there
on the bed and you know I started
regressing I was like Who am I without
football Wow and then I started
stripping away and my mind just started
unraveling Who I am I without you know
sight Who am I without my leg so am i
without you know my body if I'm not a
man if I lost all these different things
and it was painful so you know when I
stripped away as much as I could was I
with my family if my city was destroyed
it was just so painful and it was so
real to me but you know ester I stripped
away everything I got to a spark that I
could not strip away okay before we get
to the arc and the turning point the
inflection point for you I want to spend
a little bit of time here because here
you are 16 years old you built up your
entire identity around football your
career path everything was in front of
you you had adoring fans people cheering
you on and then something kind of like
you get sideswiped by life yep right and
then now you're like oh my god what am i
without this thing and I can only
imagine maybe the the sadness the
despair the depression that you must
have felt can you talk a little bit
about that yeah I mean it's it's more
like devastation and confusion you know
it's like depression wasn't even I
didn't even have time to get depressed
because it was like so devastating and
confused because not only is it an
injury but it's an invis a psychological
injury as well because it was attached
to my identity you know and and that was
the big thing that now a part of me is I
felt was actually gone you know I'm just
waking up in a hospital bed you know day
before two days before I was just full
running around athlete and now I don't
know if I'm ever gonna be able to do
anything again so it hit me really hard
really fast and then you know my mind as
creative as it was was working against
me for a while you know so it I think is
over a couple hours that I was just
sitting there because I really went deep
into each of the feelings that I was
feeling and stripping away each part of
anything that I could find to hold on to
you know if my athleticism my vision my
creativity my you know identity as a man
just like everything my family you know
so I really like what if I lost my
family what if I lost all these other
things who would I be I love what you're
saying no we had a psychotherapist on
here before Hugh Barton and he talked
about allowing yourself to feel what it
is that you feel to the fullest so that
you can acknowledge it and move on with
your life versus just feeling halfway
and it sounds to me like what you were
doing there ya know going deep going
deep it's not the the surface level
stuff it's and and what the deeper you
go the more truth can actually be
revealed and you know right after that
and during my recovery you know I found
that spark and then I started building
on the characteristics that I wanted and
you know it's a process that I take
other people through and my personal you
know coaching that I do with individuals
is I learned like hey when you strip
everything away what do you want to be
that now you could get into the designer
aspect now the artist actually starts
coming out and saying oh you know what I
like kindness kindness is a personality
characteristic I like you know I like
strengths I like endurance these are the
things that I like you know and because
I learned to read through comic books I
was like oh you know what I like being
in service and helping other people mean
strong enough to do these different
things so I was able to build my
identity based on life experiences of
things that actually
felt good versus I'm a guy from Chicago
and I'm supposed to be this way I'm not
happy that I'm supposed to be this way I
got to see from the inside what felt
good and what I wanted to wear everyday
when I woke up Wow
so let me ask you this question just
looking back now you're not in high
school obviously anymore
you're like a grown-ass man looking back
on your life how do you feel upon that
that injury that kind of stupid moment
wearing the wrong shoe was it the best
thing that happened to you or do you
still think about like man I could have
been this pro athlete yeah you know what
I look very specifically at my life and
I'm like you know what the story is
still unfolding mm-hmm so everything
that I look at is pretty much another
step and I don't really have clarity of
perspective at the moment but when I
look back I think it was yeah is
definitely one of the greatest things
that happened to me because right after
that I was on a hospital bed the rest of
the summer and I started reading and the
two books and I only read really comic
books into that point in time for the
two big books that I picked up after
that was power of the subconscious mind
and the one-hour orgasm so I just
started like studying and
self-development after that just like
kick me into high gear of all this
internal work and so yeah from then on I
was just steady into learning about self
and the mind mm-hmm a lot of people
speak about that having that near-death
experience and then making you
appreciate your life and making you
re-examine everything recontextualize
your entire existence and for you
getting that injury the ACL injury was
your near-death experience right it
caused you to kind of reexamine
everything yeah definitely and one of
the things is I think that's great for
all the people that go through it one of
the things that I've been working on is
the whole system I call the Phoenix
protocols to help you rebirth yourself
because you can actually take yourself
through that process without having that
injury without having that near-death
experience if you can let go and take a
moment and actually go through a process
you know and beautifully enough I've
gone through it through the hard way and
a lot of us have but to be able to guide
people so they can take any moment and
wherever you are in life you can make a
choice and say you know what I'm going
to start living from a deeper place I'm
gonna do some more self-discovery and
I'm gonna
right from there mm-hmm and just do it
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