EP009: Thomas R. Williams: Digging Deep: Discovering Your Depth, Determination, & Destiny Through Adversity

 Welcome to Transcending Identity. I'm your host Nichole Lee, and I am thrilled to be your guide on this incredible journey of self-discovery and transformation. This podcast is designed to help you connect deeper with yourself and transcend the identities. Beliefs and environments that may be holding you back from living your best life through insightful interviews, thought provoking discussions, and practical advice.

I speak with incredible people from around the world who share their stories of transformation, transcendence. And triumph. From entrepreneurs to spiritual teachers, athletes to activists. You'll learn how they overcame obstacles and reach new heights in their lives. I will also share my personal stories, insights, and tools along the way by listening to this podcast.

I hope you feel seen, supported, and inspired to live your best life. Thanks for spending time with me today. Your time to transcend starts now.

Hey friends. Welcome to episode nine of Transcending Identity. I'm so happy you're here and I'm so, so grateful for all of your love, your support, your feedback.

I'm excited to introduce my amazing guest for this episode, who is Thomas R. Williams. Now Thomas is an author. Former N F L, athlete and advisor, professional speaker, philanthropist, husband and father, and it was in 2012 after a career ending injury that Thomas transitioned from being a game changer to a life changer, now helping people tackle obstacles and finding their own winning solutions.

Thomas works with universities, organizations, adults, and youth. And helping them align to their visions and get from where they are to where they want to be. Reminding them that they don't have to look for greatness because it's already inside of them Now. Thomas recently published his third book, dig Discovering Your Death Determination and Destiny Through Adversity, and he shares that DIG stands for Diving into Your Greatness.

During our conversation, Thomas is going to help you dig deeper into your greatness by sharing his story details about the book, and practical advice to help you elevate your life to the next level. I hope by listening to this episode, you feel encouraged and inspired to embrace your greatness and go after your dreams and aspirations.

Hey, Thomas, welcome to the podcast. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to have this conversation. Congratulations, you have just published your third book. Yeah. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Like it's, uh, it's wild because I always think about, uh, going back to school, like I used to hate reading books, and so now I enjoy writing them and reading them, obviously.

And so it's never how you start, but obviously how you finish in your journey to getting to where you are plays a big role. This book is called Dig, discover Your Depth, determination, and Destiny through Adversity. What inspired you to write a book with a concept around digging? Yeah, so back in 2020 before the pandemic, I remember specifically when I was, uh, making my bed one morning.

At that time, I'd found out that I'm just gonna become a father. First time. You know, all those jitters, uncertainties, waiting. And I remember having a conversation with God while I was making my bed, and I was kind of like, You know, God, what's gonna happen? How do you want me to act? All of these different things like that.

And he was like, I need you to become a deeper person. I need you to have more depth to you. And I was like, I thought I was deep, like, you know? Mm-hmm. Any interaction or any conversations, we can definitely dig in and. He was like, nah. So in order for you to become deeper, I need to take you down. And so taking me through just the evolutions of emotions and becoming a father.

And, um, at that point in time, I wasn't living up to my part of the bargain with God's purpose in my life. And so he said, you are not who I created you to be. You're kind of operating on a lower level, and so I need to take you down deeper so that you can. Then connect with people a lot more. And so this is my first Fable story.

So many people are, you know, big proponents of the Fable stories. And I'll tell you right now, it's just been released and I've gotten more reviews and feedback on this book in a short amount of time that I've re previously received on my two books. And I think because everyone can take a piece from the story, there were so many gems where I, I literally could see myself in the character.

When you can see yourself. The story, I think it's so powerful. Who is the character based on? Yeah, so the, the main character is based on all of us. Mm-hmm. And so Darren in the story, he has this vision, he has this dream, and he has these, these, these goals for himself. And so there's comes a part where, Every single time we set out on something, it could be within the first hour, the first month, the first six months, there's gonna be tribulations and adversity that's going to try to prevent us from getting to that specific goal, right?

And so what we need to understand is that all of these things come not to distract us. Not to try to stop us, but actually to push us. And so the main character, Darren, is a part of all of us. And so understanding that there's gonna be a lot of adversity that's gonna try to stop you. Every single person that we get inspired by we're not inspired by their success.

We're inspired by what they overcame to get it, the adversity. You know, I was just listening to something recently and we're, it was, uh, talking about the story of, of Michael Jordan, right? He's, he's taken over 900 game winning shots, even though we, we talk about the game winning shots that he made. See, he was made from the moments where he lost those moments of shots where he took and he missed them because that what pushed him, that what drove him, that what consistently made him wanna continuously get better.

And so the character and then all the supporting Cass in the story, I wanted to, to really focus on them because so many of us become the person we are. By the people that we've talked to, by the family members, by the coaches, by the teachers, by the mentors, by the coaches, you know from, from the executive coaches standpoint.

And so really wanted to highlight that it really does take a village to raise a person. And that we're a byproduct of all of the wisdom and examples and experiences imparted into our lives. And I want to circle back, 'cause you mentioned something that is powerful that we. Connect more to the adversities, right?

The setbacks and challenges of individuals, and it's beautiful to see them come out of that, but we really want to understand those stories. So I'm curious for you, what are some of those examples that you have really bounced back after those setbacks have demonstrated resilience in your life? Yeah, so I would say early on, and, and, and it comes to the story of being in sixth grade, like, you know, people always say you gotta let go of, of the past, especially if it was harmful.

I think there's, there's validity to that, but I also think that there's, there's a little bit of a lie in that and I felt like I found some of my secret powers in some of those negative things that have taken place and happened in the past. So I always say, you gotta keep a little bit. And so I've kept this one thing.

Ever since I was 12 years old, and it was when my mom went to a parent-teacher conference and came home and she had tears in her eyes and I was so furious and upset because I didn't know what happened. Did, did she have a bad day at work? Did somebody say something to her? Did she get into a car accident?

And she walked in and she says, do you wanna know what your sixth grade teacher told me? And what she said following that is I always have held onto it. And she said, by the time you're 16 years old, you're gonna be the shot, stabbed the leader of a gang and eventually die. Wow. And so in that moment, I just remember that we talk about, I.

Something's preventing you, or something's pushing you. Mm-hmm. And in that moment, I shifted very quickly from prevention to pushing. I was prevented from living my dreams, you know, living out this, this life that I, that I ultimately have, have built for myself and, and been blessed enough to live now. But in that moment, I thought I got four years to live.

This person has just put a ceiling on me, on my life, right? They put the limitations on me as opposed to me, uh, really embodying my own personal expectations. And so that was a huge, huge shift in turning point. The next was when I got to USC was playing on the football team, earned a scholarship, was a top a hundred football player in the country.

And I get to U S C and I face my first piece of athletic adversity. There was players better than me, faster than me, stronger than me. I didn't understand like the plays and the responsibilities and the assignments that I was supposed to do, um, on the football field. And I called my mom one day and I was, I was crying.

I was like, I wanna quit. I wanna give up. And I'm her only child. And I tell people all the time, I'm her favorite. I, so, uh, I, I expected her to give me the easy way out. Like, it's fine. Like, Come on home, like there's always gonna be a place for you, like sleep in your bed, you know, let me make you breakfast in the morning.

All of those things that I felt like my mom was gonna coddle me, and she said, absolutely not. She says, it might take you a long time to understand something, but once you understand it, you'll have it forever. And Nicole, I'll tell you this, I could still name. Defenses and plays and specific things because I studied it.

She was not lying. She says, it might take you a while to understand it, but once you get it, you'll have it forever. And that was, that was a huge thing. I think another really pivotal moment in my life is when I stopped playing football. So I got drafted in 2008, had a career knee injury in 2011. I tried to come back in 2012, and when I came back I heard the whisper like, you're finished, you're done.

Really, it was the same confirmation that I heard to get into football. This is it. This is what you love. This is what you're passionate about. This is what you're supposed to pursue. I heard the same voice and had the same feeling, so I was, I was crystal clear on it. It was hard to embody, embrace, and accept.

And so now you have to continuously go on living, doing what you thought or not being able to do what you thought you were created to do. And I thought I was created to play football. I was like one of those people that, God, if you give me, you know, a five year NFL career, I'll give you 20 years of my life, like die on the field.

Right. I had all of that same mentality. Yeah. And so what I really understood was. That I wasn't just made to play football. See, that was part of my journey. See? Mm-hmm. I thought football was my purpose, but it was actually my passion to lead me to my purpose. And that's what I do now. And so for the course of the last 10, 11 years, I've been, you know, a speaker, um, written three books, and I'm an advisor.

Alongside organizations, departments, teams, nonprofit and for-profit organizations, and helping them really identify some of the key indicators to help them get to where they're going, but also how to break through those hurdles because there's, there's things that we do, we can't, it's like my daughter who's, who's three years old, and I, and I'm the parent that listens to the songs and then I start to regurgitate them.

And so like she has this song, she has this song she loves and it's called, you know, she. And in the song, it's so real to life. It's like you can't go over it, right? So there's, there's these different things. There's the river, there's weeds, there's a cave. You can't go over it, you can't go under it is what the song says.

Okay. You just have to go through it, go through it. And I'm just like, this is what I help organizations and, and individuals do. Because on the other side of that thing that's trying to stop us, you find out the greatest thing. It's, it's the who. And that's exactly what Dig is all about. It starts within, right, so it stands for diving into Your Greatness.

Oh, wow. Okay. When we started this conversation, you did talk about expanding who you were tied to what you said God was called for you to do, and it had you dig even deeper. I'm very curious what that looked like, because I would sense that's an element, not necessarily of quote unquote adversity, but it is an element of, of growing and expanding even greater than where you are today.

Yeah, so I mean, I was able to understand like, you know, they, they say that you can never put the dots together looking forward, you can only put them together looking backwards. And so I'm a very introspective person. I'm an only child, so I spent a lot of time with myself and I got in trouble a lot, so I was grounded.

So I had to make myself like, you know, keep myself occupied while I was in my room, you know, for the weekend because I got in trouble throughout the weekend school. So I'm, I'm very comfortable with myself and my thoughts. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. And I think what I've really understood is that football for me was never about playing the game.

Like, I don't miss at, at 38 years old. I don't miss playing football. It's not like I call it my buddies. We get on our cleats and we go to the park and we, you know, play two hand touch or tackle football. Don't miss it at all. Football for me was something much deeper. Football for me represented my father.

So my father wasn't in my life. And so I used to, you know, I was a kid in, in elementary school who would always take it one step further if we were playing kickball. I didn't wanna just kick the ball far. I wanted to kick the ball at somebody. We didn't play two hand touch. I played tackle. It was like we're playing tag.

I'm playing wrestle. Like it was, I just had all this built up aggression, and so once I was able to find football, it was like you get applauded for things that I used to get in trouble for, right? And so I'm getting applauded for these things that I used to get kicked outta school, sent to time out, suspended, grounded, all of these things, and now they're awarding me for 'em.

That's 0.1. The second point is that football gave me everything that I believe a father is supposed to give their child. Right? Discipline affirmation. You know that celebration. Structure. So all of these things, a father, I believe should give their children. And so football gave that to me. And then again, being an only child, I'm around, you know, 20, 30, 40, 50, 90 other brothers of mine.

So I have this family now that's all of a sudden I got siblings. And so I was able to create this, this reality in, you know, a totality of my world through playing sports. And so that's why I was able to always practice harder, play harder, do all of these things because it had a deeper meaning to me as opposed to just scoring touchdowns and winning championships like it was, uh, such a deeper meaning.

So yeah, created a family, a camaraderie, connection that you didn't have, per se, right. Right. And so, so given that, where does that take you now in this connection with fatherhood? So now being, you know, I, I've taken lessons that I learned from different coaches and, you know, not the coaches who said, this is how you're supposed to act on the football field, but this is how you're supposed to act in life.

I'll give you an example is that we played against the University of Oregon one day and we lost. We got our butts kicked and we actually didn't just necessarily lose by the score. We quit. There were several plays and several examples throughout the, the game where we, we quit and our coach had the, the clicker in his hand and the red dot, and he was pointing at the, the screen telling us where we messed up.

And he was saying, is this how you're gonna be as a husband? You come home from work and, and, and you didn't have a good day and you're just gonna walk out on your wife. Is this how you're gonna be as a father? Like you, your, your, your child doesn't, you know, have a good day at school and now comes home and you're just gonna quit and you're gonna give up?

And I'll never forget that moment. And it just reminded me again, the game is much bigger than just the four quarters and the a hundred yards that separate the two teams. It was about life. And so for me, the way that I approach fatherhood is from a lot of those valuable lessons. And the same thing is that, hey, just because you lost the game yesterday, today's another game.

Today's another practice. Like you show up and two, this game isn't four quarters of. 15 minute quarters. This isn't 60 minutes. This is a lifelong. So I think some of the ways that I parent and some of the ways that we parent is that, okay, does this, do we need to really, you know, discipline our child today based off of this?

We, we, Nicole, we just got into the phase of our daughter drawing on the wall. Oh, fun. I don't necessarily, you know, hate art. I'm not, I can't draw, right? But I don't think art's supposed to be on the wall. And so there was a moment the other day where our daughter said, daddy, come over here and look. And I am all in, like, especially when my children say, come look like I didn't get that necessarily growing up from my dad.

So I'm all in and I'm all for it. And so she points to the wall and I'm thinking like, I don't, I don't know, maybe there's something hanging on the wall, a fly on the wall, something, and it was like seven colors all scribbled on the wall. Now I, to her credit, They were all neatly organized. Like the red were over here, the blues were over here, and the greens were over here.

And so then I just called Taylor. I said, mom, come over here. This is yours. Because for me, I'm like, oh my gosh, what are you doing? But again, like I said, this is a life long mm-hmm. Mission of parenting. For the rest of my my life, I will be a father. I will be a father, whether she's 1330, whether my kids are in their forties, like I will always be a father.

So I think now understanding, again, we're not playing this finite game, I. It's an infinite game, right? This is gonna go on forever. So the way that I played football isn't necessarily the way that I parent, but I've learned so many valuable lessons in last season of life that I can apply for this season of life.

And understanding that you probably gonna lose Thomas more games than you're gonna win, but at the end, you're still gonna hold up a championship trophy. And how do you define or redefine what that success, the championship trophy, like what that looks like for you? Because many people who have been in those spaces, and I know you do work in this space, I.

Making that transition, redefining themselves, redefining what success looks like, redefining what joy and happiness looks like, redefining even with structure and, and discipline and communication and connection. Many people have those challenges when it's the next phase of their life. What are some things that you have found to be very beneficial with making that that transition?

First and foremost, understanding. The main thing, right? You keep the main thing. The main thing. My main job is not to be a motivational speaker, to to be an advisor, to be an author. My main job is to be the head of this household. Without a shadow of a doubt. So how do I define success? I have a vision in my, in my mind of failure.

So I think the opposite of this vision is success. And so I have this vision that I probably started, it's almost like a nightmare. I'll, I'll say that, that I got it last year in 2022. And I, uh, I was at a motivational speaking engagement and I mean, I, I killed it. It was, it was probably one of my best talks.

And so afterwards, it's me and my family that are just kind of like hanging around greeting people and people are high fiving. They got this long line. They come up to me and they're like, that was great. You changed my life. I'm inspired looking at my kids, looking at my family and saying, you're so lucky you get to live with this guy.

So we all walked to the car and I'm on cloud nine. We all get in the car, we close the door, and I have this great deal of fear that somebody in the car says, dad, how come you never talked to us like that? Wow. So that is my nightmare. So the opposite of that is that I. If I'm gonna inspire, um, a group, a room, an organization, a team, a department, then I need to put the same as, uh, work effort, energy, focus into my family first and foremost.

So how do I do that? One of the things that I do before I leave is I always leave like cards and little like gifts for the family. 'cause I want them to know that before I go inspire anyone else? I thought of you guys first. And then I also try to plan something for when I get back saying, Hey, before I even left, I thought about what we were gonna do before I left and what are we gonna do after I get home?

And so that's my scorecard because it's one thing to be a successful person in the world and come home and nobody caress that you're here. It's another thing to be a success in the world or by the by worldly standards. And then for people to say, we missed you. Daddy, are you? You're home, daddy, we missed you.

We, we, we, how was it? And so for me, I focus on the latter. So I focus on how do people view me when I come home as opposed to how do people view me when I'm just on a stage or when I'm in front of a room, uh, presenting. So it's all about ensuring. What I also sense from that too is driving to the core intention, your own core value, and ensuring that that's how you show up in the world.

The other thing that was interesting that since is sometimes a challenge, is balancing the demands. Of your career and your family, and you mentioned certain things that you do to ensure that they feel loved and inspired and, and cared for. I would love to hear your thoughts on how you actually manage your time and energy as well, because I can imagine that there are people who are listening, they're connected to their families, they wanna put them first, but there's always that pull.

Yeah, you have to. I mean, there's only one word that comes to mind is discipline and so, Knowing, I think during the pandemic, it gave me a sense of understanding that I'm really a minimalist. I don't need that much, but I need these core things, right? So first and foremost, I have to wake up before the sun, which most of the time is before the family.

And so that, that really energizes me. Um, the next thing that I have to do is, again, nobody's up. So I'm not, I'm not taking away from the family time, but I'm, first and foremost feeding myself is then I need to read. So I need to rejuvenate. I need to pour into my soul what's, what's really speaking to me.

Whether it's books and podcasts that I've wanted to listen to or other speakers who inspire me. And then after that, I work out. And so if I can do those three things before I quote unquote start my day, then I'm gonna, one, be able to take care of me. And one of the things that I'm sensing and seeing right now is that men are not taking care of themselves, and I'm only speaking two.

And about men is because I, I am a man and so I, I speak to more men on that level as far as vulnerability and, and in that aspect. So that's what I'm speaking to. So we're not taking care of ourselves because we're not disciplined and it's, it's, we we're, we're not being intentional with our time. So yeah, I might, I.

Need to get out with the fellas, but you know, six o'clock is dinner time. Or I might need to feel like I, I, I need to go play a round of golf or, you know, go watch the game or, you know, fish or, or do these things. But I've also learned that what we can do if we maximize our time and not just count our time, so for me, I don't golf because I do travel for work.

I don't necessarily go out and spend time with the fellows, you know, to catch a game and grab a bite to eat all the time. I'm connected to men on a regular, so we have group text messages and things like that. Um, I hosted a, a, a men's group bible study the other night, um, to have that time because that feeds my soul and then also pours into to other friends of mine.

So one of the biggest things we have to be intentional with our time, and it's almost like. If we were to look at our time, like money, and we know we have bills and we know there's a cost of living and we know there's a budget and we should be able to break those down. You know, how much your car, how much you spend on gas, how much you spend on, you know, your housing and things of that nature.

Groceries, it's the same thing of like, my family is gonna command or demand, you know, seven hours from me today. My workload is gonna command. Six hours for me today. I'm gonna sleep, I'm gonna, so I only have two hours to myself. We can't waste that time doing something that's not productively pouring into our souls so that when the people are the things that actually require of us, we don't have nothing to give them because we weren't intentional about pouring into ourselves.

And so I think that's something that I am, it's a non-negotiable for me. And so there are things that I know specifically that pour into me that allow me to stay recharged so that I can give to my family first and foremost. And so I can give to my clients and I can give to the stages and to the rooms that I'm being called to speak life into and recharge with energy.

That's, self-care is so important. And I was just thinking about what you were saying too, is you've been very intentional in recognizing there is a space that you're actually not in conflict. With having to choose, because I think that's, that's one of the things that I think is sometimes a challenge for individuals because everything feels like a trade off.

And what I'm sensing for you though is because you've been intentional and thought through, you've carved out time that you know that is truly for you and that's not gonna be tugging you every which way and multiple distractions, or having to make a decision between your family and yourself. And to the point that you're making, particularly with men and the level of vulnerability that you mentioned, what would you say with someone, a man who's struggling with also working on their emotional and mental health?

I think for me, one of the biggest things that I did for myself was I went to therapy. And I filled the void. And so I went to therapy for five years and for the first year I was going twice a week seeing the same therapist. And I would say that therapy for me turned on my awareness. And so that was the first time that I became aware of things that I wasn't aware of, and then also developed the tools to ask myself the questions of, Hey, how are you?

I'm not good. Okay, well, where are you not good at? I'm not good in these areas of life. Okay, well, what do you need to do? And so now we fast forward, you know, going through those processes for 10 plus years. I can now tell myself where I'm not good at. And I can also know that, do I need to have a conversation with myself or with someone, or do I need to let things go?

Is that on them or is it on me? So that is where I am currently. One of the things that I highly recommend for men is, To have somebody in somewhere to talk to a therapist, primarily, not somebody who is in your immediate circle, not somebody who is a family member because they have a, they have a biased opinion.

You need to pay somebody who does not have a biased opinion of you or the situation, right or wrong. Their focus is to help you heal. And so that's number one recommendation. The thing about it is that you also need to have a space. Where you can feel as though what you're going through is the majority, because in isolation we feel like we're the minority.

Whether it's with your partner, with your, with your spouse, whether it's with your children, with a family member, you feel as though sometimes the problem's on you. And so when you get into a space or an environment and you go, yeah, man, my kids are just like that. Oh gosh, it's not just me. Thank you. I'm not crazy, or you know.

Yeah, man. My, my, my spouse is tripping again, dude, my spouse was just tripping 15 minutes ago. Oh, okay. It's just not me. Right. Uh, one of the things that we've learned is that that helps the soul heal is when we're able to say these words, oh, you two. You too. Facts. You also, facts. Facts. Experienced that.

Okay. Ah, I feel connected. And the last thing I would summarize that Nicole, without being, again, I'm not a doctor in this. I've only experienced this as a somebody who prescribes and somebody who's gone through the treatments. And so I would also encourage men. To find out and be very clear on what are three things that you can do that bring you alive activities.

And then I would also encourage them to find a way in their day to do at least one of those things, everything single day. Like for me it's waking up early or reading or working out. And so if I can do one of those things, I'm gonna have a pretty good day. If I can do three of those things, oh, it's gonna be a phenomenal day.

I walked my, that's mind blowing. That's a mind blowing day. What? I walked into my daughter's school today in the late, I said, Hey, how you doing this morning? She said, I'm doing good. She said, how are you? And she literally stopped herself and she goes, I can see you're doing amazing. You wanna wanna know why?

Because I woke up this morning, I was able to do all three of those things before I gave anything to my family or anything to business. So again, being able to do those things have been tremendously helpful for me. And I've also seen the difference in the men that I've been around mentored, facilitated with and congregated with.

They've, they've, they've also shown signs of improvement just in self care. Yeah. And I still go back to. Thomas, the level of intentionality. Right? Like being present and asking what you need. Right. And the other thing that came too as well is ensuring it's something that is possible to happen on a regular basis.

That list needs to be attainable. Yep. It needs to be attainable. And I think too, it's like as you're talking, something else comes to mind. We have to have things on repeat and those things that bring us alive, right? So for me, one of the things that brings me alive is traveling and traveling by myself. I love the solo trips, and this is coming from somebody who eight years ago said, I would never travel.

I had no desire to travel. So what I, what I do now, and this is part of that, is when I'm on the plane, in the car, coming back from my recent trip, I'm always planning on where's my next trip. I give myself a deadline, okay, within six months, three months, within a year, I'm gonna come up with my next trip.

And so what that does is that gives us hope, right? We all need hope. Hope is looking forward to something, but we've also giving ourselves the timeline so we're not just saying, okay, I'm gonna plan my next trip. We're saying I'm gonna plan my next trip. In six months, within the next six months, I'm gonna have it planned.

One of the things we just moved, my family and I, so one of the things that we did is that we made sure before we left Los Angeles, before we moved to Denver, is that we made it a huge intention to book everybody's flights of when we were gonna have people come out or when we were gonna go back home and see the people.

And we did that before we even left LA because. Like you said, it's all, oh, I need to get out there. Oh, I need to do this. We always keep going. Oh shucks. Oh shucks. And it never gets done. Or it's like six years. So what I do, and I highly recommend this, is that plan, the next time you're gonna do one of those three things that brings you joy, excitement, and gives you energy.

So I know tomorrow we were talking about today. Okay, what time are you working out tomorrow? 'cause we got kids, right? So we gotta plan and be organized. So what time are you working out? Tomorrow. Okay. I already know what time I'm working out tomorrow. I already know where I'm working out tomorrow. I know what, like I'm excited.

As opposed to, hopefully within the next month I'm gonna get a workout in. Like we have to be intentional about adding those things that really light us on fire. So we know that. I mean, just even what your book, you know, talks about, there will be roadblocks, there will be things that we may be out of our control and sometimes in our control.

And when we're not able to hit those goals, that plan, et cetera, depending on the person. It can be a huge hit based on your experience, what you've done to get back on track or what you have to provide as recommendations so that people get back up. Right. And try again, to your point that it's a new day.

Yep. People overestimate what they can do in a year and underestimate what they can do in 10. It reminds me that when we set out on a goal, we have a start and an end. So we literally have said, Hey, I want to start today doing this and I'm gonna get here by this date. That's Z. We've only put two points on our timeline, and so what I encourage people to do and what I recommend and what I actually teach is that what is between, okay, well I set out to do this and it didn't happen.

Okay, but it's. Not, it's not over. So that's not a time to get, feel defeated or feel discouraged. We now have to find a benchmark or a goal that's between here, where we are and the destination of where we want to be. And when we can find that, then it's like now we get excited about that. So too many times we just feel like where I am and the next stop is gonna be where I end up.

And that's not always true and it's not accurate and it's not fair to us because sometimes people can do something that's faster than us. And sometimes we look up and we started at the same time and they're doing it and we're still in the being, uh, planted stage of our, of our journey. And so what we need to do is we need to also find out what are some of the in-between goals that we can celebrate.

So, I mean, I don't know about you, but I remember back in elementary school after we'd take a test or, or, or after a week, we'd go to, uh, where our name was on like this little sticky board and like you would see gold stars. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And like, I just always loved it and maybe it's because I didn't get too many gold stars, but when I saw Gold Star, What It didn't even, it didn't matter if, if I had an A on, on a, or I was having a test or, or a quiz that was coming up and I was looking forward to that.

It was like this week or last week, I got a gold star. I. I, I'm, I'm doing all right. And so what I've found out is that as adults, we need to find those things that give us gold stars. And so those gold stars come in the way of the in-between goals, the in-between destinations, because I'll tell you this right now.

I wrote down in 2012 that I wanted to be an international speaker. In 2023, I became an international speaker. It took me 11 years to become what I said, and if I would've looked at that as well, it's been six months. I'm not an international speaker. Mm-hmm. I should give up. I should go in another direction.

But I said, people are paying me to speak now. At the time, they weren't paying me that much, but they were paying me, which means they wanted me to speak. Right. That was my in-between goal. That was the thing that kept me going. And so now 11 years later, I've reached that goal. And so now, you know, pushing beyond and now setting new goals, new standards, new expectations for myself.

But I'll never forget, anytime you're feeling discouraged in the process, identify. A in between goal. I would love to, um, circle back to dig. Were there certain things that you were looking or hoping for people to gather from reading the book? Yeah, so there's four points to dig. Uh, I talked initially about, you know, point number one, which is preventing or pushing you.

You know, people always ask like, how do I, how do I dig? How do I dig deep? How do I, how do I push through this? And so, like I was saying, you know, most of the time people stop, quit or stay stagnant because, They're looking at something that's, you know, preventing them. Um, it can look in the source of a resource.

Um, it can look in the way of, of a person or promotion or positioning or even, you know, ideas or, or support. So what we have to do is we have to go from a state of being prevented to being pushed. And so, like I talked about in sixth grade, that was a preventative moment, but it actually pushed me and it drive, it drove me.

And so it still drives me to this day, step number two. Is that if you can't find the example, find the proof. If you don't have the example that's right around you that that can be done, you have to find the proof. So in 1954, everybody in the world thought to run a mile under four minutes was physically impossible.

They tried it until Roger Banister did it. He ran in three minutes of 59 seconds. Now, in the same year, there was about 35 people who also. Broke a four minute mile. Now, in that one year, did people get faster? Did, did, did we get stronger? Did we did, like, did we just get like these different muscles in our ankles?

No, they knew it was possible. They knew it was possible. Yeah. They, they found the proof even though there was not an example. Right. The same thing for me. Um, I could have the excuse of, I didn't, I didn't, I wasn't raised with my dad. I don't, I don't, I didn't, I didn't know what it's like to be a dad. So what I do is that now I start asking dads, Hey, what are you doing with your kids this weekend?

Hey, how do you deal with this? How do you handle this? So even though I didn't have the example, I was able to find the proof. So that's number two, right? If you don't have the example, that's not an excuse because we can find the proof that it can be done. Uh, thirdly, there's magic and miracles in the quitting point.

See, people are always thinking about, well, what am I supposed to do when I feel like quitting? Is this the moment that I'm supposed to turn back and quit and give up? So in the quitting point in moments I was talking about, you know, when I called my mom and I said, mom, I'm, I'm, I'm ready to quit. I'm ready to give up.

It was six months later that I met probably one of the most influential males that could have ever walked into my life. Who I still talk to to this day. It was my coach in college. He had just come on the next year to become our coach, and I leaned into him not only to play sports, but how to, how to approach life.

I tell people all the time, he taught us how to tackle on the field, but most importantly, he, he taught us how to tackle in life. I. And so if I would've quit and gave up, I would've never met him, which means that I wouldn't have the insight. He gave me my first book, Nicole, to read. Oh wow. Like a football coach gave me my first book, which is called See You At the Top by Zig Ziglar, and he gave it to me in like the hardest time of my life.

And that's what shifted my perspective. And so there's a lot of different things that, that we're gonna approach with the opportunity to quit. But wait in those moments, because those are the moments where magic happens. I tell people that you have to wait patiently. I. While preparing profusely. So still keep preparing while you're waiting.

So it's like, well, it's a waiting game. We'll wait, but keep preparing. And fourth and foremost, what I want people to take away from this story is you gotta run towards the roar. You have to run towards the roar. And so run towards the roar is a, is an old African proverb. Where they talk about animals at the, the watering hole, you know, drinking and, and just bathing.

You know, we'll talk, we'll call 'em hyenas and so they're, they're at this water hole. And what happens is the lions are smart, and so the lions put on one side of the animals, they put the, the lion with the loudest roar. But that lion is the slowest. It's not athletic, it's old. And the only thing it has working for 'em is the ability to roar loud.

And so what happens is this, this lion roars as loud as possible, and it freaks the animals. The hyenas in this case, it freaks 'em out. And so they run in the complete opposite of direction. But the lions have all of the fast athletic Linus sitting on that other side, and they hunt them down. And what happens is, is those animals would've faced.

The danger that they felt, the fear that they felt, if they would lean into that and they would've, you know, stayed there, if they would've waited or if they would've ran towards the roar, they would, they would, they would be alive. They would've a much better chance. But since they ran away from the fear, the uncertainty, the unknown, I'm supposed to stop, this is a sign, then that's when they actually find themselves in the danger that they perceived in the first place.

So fourth and foremost, you gotta run towards the roar. That's the last part to dig. Thank you so much, Thomas. This has been such an amazing episode. We'll make sure in the show notes to have the information of where to grab the book as well as all of your other publications as well. And I would assume that would be the best place for people to connect with you would be on your website, is that correct?

Yeah. Reach out to me. If you write me, I'll write you back. Perfect. Thank you so much for your time, Thomas. Oh, it's awesome. Thank you so much for having me, and, uh, congratulations on all of the lives that you're helping transform and transcend. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening. I hope this episode enriched your life.

If so, please leave a review, subscribe and share this episode with others. Let's continue to grow together, transcend to new heights, and create a life that truly reflects who we are. I'll see you soon on another episode of Transcending Identity.