Motivation Daily by Motiversity - DO NOT GIVE IN - Best Motivational Speeches Compilation | Most Powerful Motivation | 45 MINUTES LONG

Episode Date: July 14, 2024

NEVER GIVE IN! Stay strong, believe in yourself, never give up and never give in. Speakers:Lisa NicholsYouTube: https://bit.ly/36c2nYrLinkedin: https://bit.ly/2X67LYVInstagram: https://bit.ly/3bPuLRnFacebook: https://bit.ly/2WFfaiOLearn more: https://bit.ly/2zL1Z75Inky Johnsonhttps://www.inkyjohnson.com/https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5zpXXAcM8oTnYzk6KA7usAhttps://www.instagram.com/inkyjohnsonmotivate/https://twitter.com/inkyjohnsonDan Pinkhttps://twitter.com/danielpinkhttps://www.facebook.com/danielhpinkhttps://www.danpink.com/Chaunte Lowe:Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/chauntelowe/?hl=enWebsite - https://www.chauntelowespeaks.com/Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/chauntelowe/Marcus "Elevation" TaylorYouTube: https://bit.ly/MarcusATaylorChannelInstagram: http://bit.ly/3aLfu3PFacebook: http://bit.ly/2TB9uoiTwitter: https://bit.ly/3xXlFCPBook Marcus to speak at your organization: https://bit.ly/BookMarcusATaylor Tyrese Gibsonhttps://www.instagram.com/tyrese/Eric ThomasYouTube: http://bit.ly/2ua2os4​Instagram: http://bit.ly/2Tpp5IC​Dwayne The Rock Johnsonhttps://www.instagram.com/therock/Coach PainYouTube: http://bit.ly/2LmRyeaInstagram: http://bit.ly/2XLcLW5Facebook: http://bit.ly/32tZdNiWebsite: http://bit.ly/2YTgWvqBook Coach Pain to speak at your organization: https://bit.ly/BookCoachPain Dr. Jessica HoustonYouTube: https://bit.ly/2PXZqTVInstagram: https://bit.ly/31Y6Uf5Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Y7JDqdWebsite: https://expectingvictory.com/Bobby Maximushttps://www.instagram.com/bobbymaximus/Music:Really Slow Motion Buy their music:Amazon : http://amzn.to/1lTltY5iTunes: http://bit.ly/1ee3l8KSpotify: http://bit.ly/1r3lPvNBandcamp: http://bit.ly/1DqtZSoSecession Studios - And the sky turned redhttps://www.youtube.com/c/thesecessionScott Buckley - There Was A Timehttps://www.youtube.com/c/ScottBuckleyAudiomachine - So Say We Allhttps://www.youtube.com/user/audiomachine1https://audiomachine.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Ask yourself, what's my dream? What are you willing to do that you've never done before? We live our lives and we feel as if we're promised something. We really don't have any control. Hey man, life don't owe you a thing. What makes life worth living? What do we want out of life? We want a chance to do something.

We want a chance to learn and grow and lead a psychologically rich life. You want to go somewhere you've never gone? You've got to do something you've never done. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over and over again and expecting a different result. Regret hurts. Regret also instructs. And you can't have one without the other.

I think the beautiful thing about adversity in opposition, when you live with it, it teaches you. So if you avoid the pain, you don't get any of the learning. Make fear your fuel. The things that seem to hurt you and make you feel like you can't put one step in front of the other, it's just something that's going to happen to make you stronger. It might take time. Gasp onto that hope of everything that you have and know. that this two shall pass. Easiest thing in the world to do is to be negative. Easiest thing in the

world to do is complaining. Easiest thing in the world to do is to quit. That's easy. It's always a lesson. It's always a blessing. It's up to us to extract it. Attitude is a small thing that we often underestimate, but we really can control that. You are the author of your autobiography. You write the story of of your life. No one can write your financial story. No one can write your spiritual story. No one can write your emotional story but you. What are you willing to do that you've never done before? It's going to cost you more time than you thought you have. It's going to cost you some friends who couldn't make the entire journey with you. It's going to cost you something. Because sometimes good people go through some crazy stuff. People are losing hope and they feel like like their runway is too short.

But I realized that I had to put one step in front of the other, and I had to take it one day at a time. You will have to become someone you've never been before. You want to go somewhere you've never gone? You got to do something you've never done. You got to say something you've never said. You got to go to a place in you that you've never even been. You get to redesign.

You are your Michael Angelo. You are your greatest sculpture. And you get to recarve and you get to up level as much as you need. You're not sentenced to this life this way. You chose it. You get to choose as much as you want. You get to design it any way you choose. You're not sentenced to your future.

You have an opportunity to your future. What do you want and how do you want it? And if it doesn't make you a little afraid, then you ain't playing big enough. Your knees are supposed to knock a little bit. Your teeth are supposed to chatter a little bit. This is supposed to be at least two butterflies in your stomach. At least, because if not, you're playing inside your comfort zone. And we mistake the fact that we're supposed to be comfortable 24-7.

Well, let me tell you something. Comfortable is equivalent to complacent. I'll choose inconvenience every day, any day, to make a difference on the planet. I don't mind being mildly to moderately to significantly inconvenient to leave my fingerprint on this planet. So I just came to talk to the game changers and to the change agents who are willing to confront

any part of you that's not speaking to your madly, wildly, wildly amazing future. And here, greatness, brilliance, outrageous. On it, ask yourself, what's my dream? What's my dream? I came to challenge you to play in the biggest field you've ever played in. I came for you to challenge the fear that might be inside of you and to redesign and reprogramming. You look at it long enough, you be with it intimately enough, and it has to dissipate. You are the designer of your destiny.

You are the author of your autobiography. You write the story of your life. No one can write your financial story. No one can write your spiritual story. No one can write your emotional story but you. The pen has always been in your hand. The pen has always been in your hand. I say write a story that's going to be damn good to read.

And ask yourself, what's my dream? What are you willing to do that you've never done before? What are you willing to say that you've never said before? Are you willing? Are you willing to do that thing you've never done before? Or are you willing to stand at the edge of your own greatness? Are you willing to look at your fears? Are you willing to recognize that you can be afraid?

Are you willing to look at the fact that there is always healing to come? There's always growth to come. There's no arrival. Are you willing? And then in the space of that, are you still willing to lean to the edge? Fill the breeze of possibility, not knowing if you will fly or fall. Are you willing? Are you willing to not quite know what's there, but that something is there is greater than you? Are you willing to say my life has to make a huge?

You've heard me say this before, that there's a birthday and a transition day, and in between that is all the opportunity in the world. That's that dash, that dash that says, are you willing to disrupt my life? You're not here. You're not put here to leave my life calm. You're here to be a disruption for my life. You're here to cause me to want to be someone I've never been. Do something I've never done because you've lost my path. Are you willing to show me that right? I'll get to it tomorrow. I'm like, who promised you that? Because light changes so quick. We live our lives and we feel as if we're promised something. We really don't have any control. We can control what we possess. Emotions, attitude, thought process,

perspective, how we speak, how we respond. But just life in general, we have no control of that. But it's so many parts of the injury that shaped my perspective. It was almost surreal. Your career is probably over. Your arm and hand will probably never be the same again. Hey man, life don't owe you a thing. Everybody them been through something. Everybody's going to encounter something. I think the beautiful thing about adversity and opposition, when you live with it, it teaches you. If you're open to it, the easiest thing in the world to do is to be negative. Easiest thing in the world to do is complain. Easiest thing in the world to do is to quit.

That's easy. It's moments like that that you remember that shape and mold you as a person as you go throughout life. And I think we all have them. We all have these moments, right, whether it be humility moments, whether it be humility moments, whether it be, you know, moments that keep us grounded. It's just we choose sometimes to forget them. And for all of us, we're going to encounter those defining moments in our lives, right, to where it's going to hurt. It's always a lesson.

It's always a blessing. It's up to us to extract it. Attitude drives performance. So that's the key to life, I think, sometimes when things don't go our way, the quote says it. You judge the true character and caliber of a person, not by where they stand in times of comfort and convenience. You judge the true character and caliber of a person by where they stand in times of challenge and controversy. But when things go wrong, things don't go the way you want them to. They don't unfold the way you want them to.

Who are you? Because that's the true test of who you are as a person. That's your true character. Everybody is going to smile when the sun's shining, man. But the song says it. Can you stand the rain, baby? Attitude is a small thing. that we often underestimate, but we really can control that.

Any long-term plan immediately hits the ugly truth of reality and then becomes a joke. I think very carefully about what's next. Any regrets you'd care to share? Anything that feels like, that stands out? Yeah, all kinds of regrets. You know, I have regrets earlier in my life about not being a kind enough person, not bullying people, but actually being in situations. where there was someone on the periphery or someone being left out and noticing that and not doing anything. That really bugs me.

Like many people, there were a lot of people who talked about regrets about regretted not going to funerals. And there's one funeral that I'm thinking of, a guy who I worked with, I wasn't like a close friend, but I didn't go to his funeral because I was like really busy that day and I still regret that. So that's a smaller one. I'm a you know, know, for the folks who are interested in careers, which is a lot of your audience I know, one of my favorite techniques is what Tina Selegg at Stanford University calls a failure resume. Like, I've made a failure resume, a list of all of my setbacks and mistakes and blunders, and you list all those. Hell yeah. You list all those, and then you think about, like,

what did you learn from that? And then how can you apply it going forward? And so, so again, you know, for me, you know, you can't spend a few years on a topic without it changing it, particularly a topic with such emotional freight of regret. But the idea that you should never look backward on your life and say, oh, I wish I had done things differently, is actually a terrible blueprint for living. And I think one of the problems, you know, especially in North America, is that we're a little over-indexed on positivity. You know, positive emotions are incredibly important. important, and they should outnumber our negative emotions, but we need some negative emotions because they instruct us.

And our most prominent negative emotion is regret. And because regret teaches us, it instructs us, it clarifies us, it clarifies what we should be doing and how we should be doing it. And so we need to understand how to deal with our negative emotions. We can't ignore them like no regrets. We can't wallow in them, like, oh my God, it's so terrible, I'm such an awful person. So among the misunderstandings are we think that when we experience regret, it's somehow an aberration, when in fact everybody experiences regret.

Regret makes us human. Regret is part of the human condition. What's more, we think that regret makes us weaker when in fact the research shows that done right, regret can make us stronger, that we can list our regrets as an engine for forward progress. I come into my junior year and I'm about to get exactly what I want. I'm about to get this thing called NFL. Ten games away from this dream.

This thing that I've been working for, my whole life, my whole life is dedicated to this one game. I got the paperwork that states I'm about to be an NFL draft. NFL on top of the paper. Enki Johnson projected top of the paper. Projected top 30 automatic multi-millionaire now all you have to do the heart parts over just play the next 10 football games in You get you made it and I go out in a silly game against Air Force two minutes left and I go to make a tackle that I can make with my eyes closed And when I hit him every breath in my body left my body goes completely limp I fall to the ground I blacked out

I eyes open I'm still not you know too concerned because it's football When my eyes open, guys run over ink. Let's rock, man, let's go. Let's finish them off. And I'm like, I can't. I say, I can't move. Shock, neck to my toes. I can't feel anything.

Shock leaves. It stays in my right arm and hand. I'm like, maybe I got a bad stinger. They put me on the spine board, willing me off the field. Doctor says to me as he's walking beside me, I don't know how you're still alive, son, you don't have any pose. We get to the ambulance. My father's standing there.

I'm like, pops. I laid it on him, right? I put it on him, right? My dad's like, yeah, but I think you got the worst part of this one, he. Doctors say, we're going to take you over, run a couple tests, bring you back into the room, everything will be cool. They run the test, they bring me back into the room, mom comes in, kisses, praise, son, you'll be fine. Doctors rush in, hand boy says, hey man, I've got to rush him back to surgery, he's about to die. If we don't perform this surgery tonight, I guarantee you, you won't be here in the morning.

And now the thing I placed my identity in, now it was going, that's why I laugh at people when they say, man, if I could just get this, I'll be, man, if I could just get this position, I'll be, woo. Man, if I could just get this amount of money, I'll be, I'm like, ooh. But what happens even if you get it or you don't get it? Like, do you have the ability to accept what you don't understand? Can you handle when things get off course? I'm sitting there and I'm thinking like, man, I'm eight games away, and God is really,

redirected me and I'm like, God, just let me get to the NFL, didn't redirect me. Like, let me get the contract, didn't redirect me so I can help my family. And I thought it was over after football got redirected. My life got redirected two, three more times before I even fell into my purpose and my mission and what I was supposed to be doing. It got redirected two, three more time. I'm thinking I'm going to be a coach. Just like every guy when he finishes the game, and I'll just coach.

But people keep coming to me. telling me speak ink you need to speak and I'm like I'm not speaking everybody got a story that's how I do like everybody them been through something right everybody's gonna encounter something and so I never looked at speaking sharing I never was the guy like oh man this happened to me let me go share with the world I was like no ain't figure it out like pick up the pieces move forward and figure it out and so when people would say this I'll be like nah I'm not trying to speak like I don't want to speak the things we go through in life, man, and not just for us.

Right? Once we get to a place of peace and we figure out how to deal with it, it's our responsibility to go out and share that. It's like not before the world all the time, but just to share it. Because other people go through things, right? Other people are fighting. Just go out and share it. And it was the first time I had got hit with something to where I pondered it, right? To where I was like, make a nice point. And I was getting invitations to speak. at the time school assembly I got the same feeling that I was getting in the tunnel

right and I'll never forget when I got it I felt it and I captured it I spoke did well got home and I'll never forget thinking like I might need to be more intentional about this when we go through things and like the first thing we try to do is understand I'm like nah man some things you're gonna go through it's gonna be so tough you're going to understand it right away. Just survive it. I always tell a story about when my faith was fortified and my life went to another level was the only thing I had at that moment was a prayer and a book. I got up and I looked at my wife I said I'm gonna take this book to open. So I got my book, I got my suit, it's hot, every door that opened I ran in it. I'm hey man

Inky Johnson drove from Atlanta they're like get out of here. I'm like man over people rude man thought you's nice you give away cars like you rude So after getting kicked out like four doors, I go to the back of the building. I sit down, I put my back on the building and look up to the sky. And I'm like, oh, man, thought it was you. Like, I'm like, man, my wife won't chew me out, man. I get up. I look down the sidewalking at this moment.

There was nobody but Oprah and a security guard. Talk about nobody else. She's walking toward me. I'm walking toward her. I get a couple of feet away. I stopped. She grabbed my suit. She said, hey, that's a nice suit. I said, thank you. I said, I drove from Atlanta. I wanted to get you my book. She said, oh, cool, great. I said, would you mind taking a picture? We take a picture and I'm going to walk off.

She said, I got to get in and do my show. I said, all right, thank you. And I'm going to walk off. And her security says to me, said, hey, young man, come here. Stop, I went back to him. He said, I just want to tell you something. He said, what just happened never happens. He said, now I don't know what's going to come out of it. I don't know. love show, I don't know about any of that. He said, but I just want to make sure I tell you what just happened never happens. Like God, are we really moving to the point where I can get up in Atlanta, Georgia, look at my wife, don't know, nobody in Chicago, don't know nobody on Oprah's staff, and look

at my wife and say, I'm going to meet Oprah. I got a certain level of faith that I'm going to meet Oprah. Like at a certain point, like, what is it really about? Like, and I know the initial reaction when we go through things is to say, man, why this has to happen to me? and it's an honest reaction. Because sometimes good people go through some crazy stuff. At a certain point, you're going to hit something.

It's going to test that level of faith. And my definition of commitment was always staying true to what I said I would do long after the mood that I've set it in has left. Like, am I going to stay true to my beliefs and my core and my essence of who I am as an individual, even if I get a paralyzed right arm and hand, am I going to stay true to it? Even if my little career that I thought I was going to have disappears,

Am I gonna stay true to it? Even if one day I'm in a football game, the thing I love to do, the thing I have been practicing my whole life, and in one moment it gets wiped out. Am I going to stay true to it? Somebody comes up to me almost every week and say, like be honest, like you said you wouldn't change what happened to you. Why?

I got a paralyzed right on my hand, but who I am as a man that never got paralyzed. Can I condition my mindset and my perspective that when uncertainty happens, Opposition happens, adversity happens, I can put my mind, my perspective, and it's facing place to extract some good. Stop trying to understand it and focus on surviving it. This is important. In some ways, it's central. Regret hurts. There's no question about that, but here's the thing.

Regret also instructs, and you can't have one without the other. So if you avoid the pain, you don't get any of the learning. So what you have to do is be able to process that pain. And I think there's a way for us to do that, to take our regrets, use them as signals. We haven't been taught to do that. That's the problem. We have this weird approach. We have this weird view of negative emotions.

Like some of us think, oh, positive all the time. That leads to delusion. Some of us get so absorbed in our negative emotions that they, in some ways, exonerate us from making progress. That's a bad idea too. What we need to do is we need to process our negative emotions in a in a systematic way and I think there's a good way to do that. What we need to do is we need to think about our regrets and when we think about our regrets, the evidence is pretty clear that they can help us make better decisions, solve problems faster, be better strategists, find greater meaning in our life. What I had is I had this giant

database of regrets and I would look on my computer screen and see them listed there. And you know what? It wasn't that much of a downer because I felt like people were trying to make sense of it. There's some interesting research in this. One of the things that we think about disclosure of our vulnerabilities and our setbacks and so forth is that people will like us less. And in fact, they actually like us more when we do that. And so I actually had a lot of respect for people willing to disclose and willing to explain. And I felt like I was actually helping them make sense of this regret. So it wasn't that much of a downer. Over and over and over again around the world, the same four regrets kept coming up. And I found that fascinating because there

wasn't much national difference. What's more, as I said earlier, these four regrets are revealing because by revealing our regrets, we are revealing what we value the most. And so to me, these four core regrets operate as a photographic negative of the good life. That is, is if we understand what people regret the most, we actually understand what they value the most. So in a weird way, these 16,000 regrets are not a downer as much as they are a pointer to what makes life worth living.

Many of these decisions are less monumental than that, there's kind of a focusing illusion, that when we're making a decision, we think that that's the most important decision there is. And so for me, I think a tool, is to make decisions for fundamental reasons rather than instrumental reason, which it goes to what you were talking about before,

about careers as a line. That if we make decisions, if I decide, I'm going to major in this because it's going to lead to that, which is going to lead to that, which is going to lead to that. I think that's a bad idea because I think it's a bad bet because you have no idea where it's going to lead. If you major in something because you like it, because it's interesting, because you find it compelling,

major in that because you're going to learn a lot, you're going to do really well, and you have no idea where it's going to lead. And so, you know, the reason that I like making decisions for fundamental reasons rather than instrumental reasons is not because I have this noble view of the world, is that instrumental reasons don't work because the world is so complicated. So you're better off just making decisions for fundamental reasons, doing things you care about that are meaningful and that contribute, and being alert to opportunity along the way, recognizing that, as you said earlier, that the path is not a path, it's the opposite of a line. It's a messy, three-dimensional squiggle. To you, to the person who's feeling like there's no hope, that you can't see a way

out of your current situation or circumstance. I want to say first that I'm sorry that you're going through whatever trial it is that you're going through right now. It's not fair and you don't deserve it. But there is hope on the other side of this trial. I want you to think about those feelings, those times where you felt happiness, where you felt joy, where you experienced love in a way that you never thought you'd be able to experience. And I want you to hold on to those moments and think about your future and think about having those moments of love and joy. joy and laughter and peace again. And I want you to know that right now it's just a trial. It's just a test. The things that seem to hurt you and make you feel like you can't put one step in front of

the other, it's just something that's going to happen to make you stronger. You don't have to get from how you're feeling right now to immediate joy and laughter. It might take time. But all I'm ask you to do is put one foot in front of the other and grasp onto that hope with everything that you have and know that this two shall pass. I'm rooting for you. When you think about, you know, what you want out of life, where you want to make your mark, you have to start figuring out who you are. And so my first step is always to figure out who you are. Where can you be great? And when you do that, you have to put the blinders on. Don't look at anyone else. Because nobody. else can tell you how to be you. So I dealt with homelessness and poverty growing up,

domestic violence, growing up in a home with a lot of drug abuse and alcoholism. But I had that vision of going to the Olympics and I had that skill of jumping. I put those two things together and it was really the thing that pulled me through those difficult times. And I think that when people have those difficult times, you have to have something that brings hope and joy and has the power to compel you through difficult situations because each and every one of us has them, but we have to be able to see outside of it. And when we lose hope, that's when we feel like giving up.

People are losing hope, and they can't see beyond their current circumstances, and they feel like their runway is too short. But I want to bring the fact that there is hope. There was a time period in my life where I decided that I didn't want to live anymore. And just to see all the amazing and beautiful things that were waiting for me in life on the other side of that moment, I want people that are living in their 20-year-old devastation to know that there's life on the other side of it and to hold on to hope. The final three Olympics, every time you competed, you had just had a baby.

What was that like? I mean, it blows my mind to even think about it. I love what that journey in life looks like and what it takes. But I can only imagine what it takes as an athlete. Can you walk us into what it was like your body preparing after just giving birth? So your body completely changed. Changes after you have kids. I remember after having my first child, my ankles were so weak

and I needed to be able to put a tremendous amount of torque and force into the ground to be able to high jump. And I remember having to take it one step at a time. And I think that whenever we're at a certain level and for whatever reason we get knocked down, we just want to get back to that level so quickly. But we forget the process of being patient with ourselves and being very meticulous and strategic towards getting back, towards where we want to go, that we can injure ourselves or we put ourselves through a lot of mental anguish. And so for me it was no different. I wanted to put myself through that mental anguish.

And I had just jumped one of the best jumps in American history. And yet now I'm struggling to jump a hike that I cleared my freshman year of high school. But I realized that I had to put one step in front of the other. And I had to take it one day at a time. And by being consistent, I eventually was able to jump higher and get to the point where I qualified for the Olympic trials. and then I qualify for the Olympic Games. But I learned throughout that process. And a lot of people say hindsight is 2020 vision.

And they say it in a negative way. Like, oh, hindsight is 2020 vision. But it's the reality that you could take that 2020 vision, apply it to the next time and do it again without falling into the bear traps. And that's what I did from one Olympics to the next. I figured out a process that worked. Another saying that I love is that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over and over again and expecting a different result.

But they also say that quote in a negative connotation. The reality is there's a positive aspect to it. If you're doing things right, you get amazing results, you put in that recipe time and time again of the insanity to expect to get anything less than success. And so once I figured out what works, I keep doing it. My weight sheet is exactly the same as it was when I was. in college, my training, I kept everything the same because I know it works. Flipping that insanity quote and using that, you know, as almost a formula to success, that is cool. If I, if I fast forward, so you've been to four Olympics, you're preparing for 2020.

2019, you get a devastating diagnosis and it changes your world. Can you let us know about what that diagnosis was? Yes, so in 2018 I found an itsy-bid-ciny rice-sized lump from doing a self-breast exam. And the reason why I even decided to do self-breast exams, I was only 34, 34 at the time, was because another athlete shared her story and her journey with breast cancer, so I really wanted to be proactive. Unfortunately, when I went to the doctor, I was dismissed, and I was told not to come back for six years,

and that what I was experiencing was a swollen lymph node, Well, the doctor was completely wrong. It turned out to be breast cancer, a very aggressive, fast-growing form of breast cancer that predominantly impacts African-American women. And when I started learning the statistics about breast cancer and how impactful it is that it could be as much as one in eight here within the states that will be impacted with breast cancer in their lifetime, I was shocked and I was devastated. And, you know, being a mother that I thought that I had my whole life in front of me now facing a diagnosis where I could die soon, my heart broke.

But I realized that that tenacity that was built over years of watching the Olympics, enduring poverty, enduring domestic violence, figuring out ways to come back from pregnancy to be at the top of the world, to break American records. I could take that same mindset and mental state and apply it to this breast cancer journey. And I started making a list of all of the things that I did to become successful as an athlete. But before that, I said, no. I decided that I was going to be defiant and that I wanted to live

and that my life was worth fighting for. And so, you know, I did the same things. When you're an athlete, you look for a great coach, look for a great nutritional plan, You look for, you know, a great training program. I did the same thing. I looked for an amazing oncologist, amazing surgeon. I looked for an amazing medical team

so that I could make sure that I could be here and watch my kids grow up. Shanty, my mom went through breast cancer and I remember the fear of that as a child. I remember the strength in her, the resilience, the tenacity. And I remember the family conversation because it does start to look at, you zoom out and you recognize there's a lot of life ahead of us and how do we rally as a family. At the same time, you were having that family conversation, though,

you were still training. You were training through chemo for an Olympics. You weren't just talking about, you know, how do we rally as a family? You were still rallying as an athlete. How did you juggle both those pieces? And did it help work through it or was it actually, you know, too much to take on? When I first was diagnosed, I didn't know if I was going to train for a fifth Olympic Games. It was something that, you know, I put myself in a great position just in case I wanted to, but it wasn't something that I had yet committed to. When I found out those statistics and how prevalent breast cancer was in the lives of so many women and children and fathers, mother, sisters all around the world, I felt like I had to do something.

I didn't have a lot that I perceived as resources to be able to be able to. to make it impactful change, but I did know I knew how to train. I knew how to compete. I knew how to make Olympic Games. And I figured if that's my lot, if that's what I had in my hands to be able to contribute to the world, I realized that the Olympic Games is a huge media conglomerate. People are interested in the stories and the storylines and that I could take that story and raise awareness about breast cancer and help change my platform into a platform that disseminates information, supports people, and most importantly, provides hope to the hopeless. And I felt like it was my responsibility. So training for my fifth Olympics was solidified by the

fact that I was diagnosed with breast cancer. And, you know, once I found out that my treatment would be chemotherapy and it would be a double mastectomy, I didn't care. That wasn't going to stop me because I was fueled by love and compassion for other people in a world where We're told to take selfies and care so much about ourselves. I felt strength from taking on the burdens of other people and acting out of compassion and love for them. It felt like a labor of love. And it was my honor to do it. And I would continue to do it.

And I would do it a thousand times over if I could. What would you tell yourself as a 20-year-old? To not worry so much. I worry so much and paid so much attention. to things that were not important. Family, love, friendships, experiences, and being able to be of service to one another, I would continue to tell myself to have faith,

never, never not for one second to give up faith because everything works out exactly the way that it's supposed to. I think that those are the bits of information that would have kept me from a lot of days of crying and fighting with myself and being upset because in the end it always worked out. You know what? It's funny. It was an older lady who told me not to make mountains out of molehills. And I think sometimes we have this situation right in front of us, and it seems so big, And we feel it's just a huge stumbling block of us being who we want to be or being a contributed to society as a whole.

And I think that if we stop making small, minute issues into monumentous mountains in our life, we will live a more fulfilled, more happy life. Excuses are the patches that we sow on the garment of failure. We talked a lot about kind of hidden strengths. things that people can't see work ethic, discipline, where do you think that switch went for you to say, I'm not going to perpetuate the cycle, I'm going to break the cycle. What was that skill within you to see that, recognize it, and actually be able to do it? It's funny, I think when I was young, I had a strong sense of mind, body, and spirit,

and I realized that nobody could influence my thoughts in my own mind. And I have this thing that says, you grow the seeds and kill the weeds. And so the things that brought me joy or brought me peace or brought me a sense of normalcy that sparked hope inside of me, I would fuel those things with the things that I said, the books that I read, the movies that I watch, I would really find ways to feel those. But then when there was that negativity where people would say, you know, do you know the odds of making it to the Olympics? Do you know the odds of this and the odds of that?

I would immediately take that information that I had and refute that in my own mind. And, you know, faith was a huge part of my upbringing, you know, just being able to go to church with my grandmother and feel like there's something bigger than myself that would help lead and guide me out of some turbulent situations. I realized that all three of those areas of my life had to be good in order for me to be good. And I think that, you know, with everything that we've went through with the COVID-19 pandemic, it's it's shined a huge light on the people that are living in households of domestic violence and abuse. It's made it inherently clear that there is a huge gap in the wealth distribution amongst

people and that some people are falling behind. And I think that it takes education and learning how to strengthen yourself, mind, body, and spirit to be able to weather these turbulent times. And so I think that's why I feel like it's important for me to share my story because some people don't automatically have that hope or have that know-how. And being an athlete coming through my own turbulent situations, I feel like I have like 20, 30 years of experience in this realm that could really help people. And I feel like it's my duty to do so. It's time to stay focused. Why are you so anti-social? Because I'm trying to get it.

Why are you staying on the basketball court so much? Because I'm trying to get it. Why are you out there practicing in the hot sun when ain't nobody else out there? Because I'm trying to get it. Pain is temporary. I've been trying to get that into your spirit. I've been trying to get you to celebrate pain. That pain is your friend.

That pain is going to take you to the next level. Remember, just because something's never been done before, it doesn't mean it can't be done. It just means we haven't figured. get out a pathway on how to get it done and we will get it done. This is it right here. This is that moment that you got to work. This is that moment when you got to push.

There is no weakness in the place of business. Think about your end goal. Think about what it's going to look like. Picture it in your mind. See yourself already there. Stop praying that the storm will pass over you and pray to grow. through the storm. What you go through, you will grow through.

You simply have to give it everything you have to get it. You need to shut down all negativity and frankly not give you what others say and think. You're going to do what you've been called to do. You're going to be what you called me. You're going to have and you're going to prove to everybody that tried to break you. You're going to prove a wolf. Everybody's trying to stop you. Everybody is trying to kill your dream.

You're going to prove all that. I don't care what the adversity has been. You have two choices. You can be unforgiving, bitter, angry, upset, and be a carrier of grief, or you can choose resilience. If you truly want to make change, if you truly want that greatness, you got to work hard. You got to dig a little bit deeper. You got to find it. You want to test my resolve.

You want to test my ability to go to the limit. You want to see where it's where it is. It mind begins. This ain't no fucking game. My motherfuckin' lifestyle, son. You're talking tiredly too much about your dream. You talk too much about your vote. Stay at once.

Stay at once. Stay at twice. No more than three times. And get to work. You already know what it feels like. Quit to throw in the town. To sit on the couch. Do you know what it's like to give everything that you have?

And push. and persevere! You've got to make the opportunity happen. You've got to be fired up. You got to be hungry for it. You got to have the desire to push yourself. Are you hearing work, work, work, work, work. Rind, rhyme, rhyme, rhyme, ride.