Well theirs a lot of reasons why I felt this was important and over the next couple weeks ill touch on all them but I figured it would be in good form to start from the beginning, and not the run of the mill sexist men need to lead and women need to follow beginning. I just started having a real problem with where we are going as a society. The New normal is jaw dropping compared to what our parents and those that came before us thought was the worst to come in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. We have made dramatic leaps and bounds in the wrong direction on a lot of important topics. Ill try not to go on a tangent lol but I tend to run my mouth so follow me down this rabbit hole for a sec and well see how this goes.

So here’s a “Random” backstory to set some precedence: Most of our parents, mine in particular were not given a blueprint on how to do this parenting thing. They put there best foot forward and prayed for the best; now some were on the productive side of monkey see monkey do: Grandparents were successful + Parents were successful= kids were successful and the spouse they choose came from the same factory. simple right? How about the other side: non existent father + single mother= figure life out on your own, add a spouse: Divorced parents+multiple step parents= being an early Adult because well someone has to be one in the house. Nevertheless the two come together and if nothing else agree on one common goal…There kids will not live one day like they had to.

I am the middle of three, all 10 years apart. With that being said I’m built different, not because of favoritism or some pecking order but simply because I was brought into there world in a time that was different from the other two; so my examples of struggle, fight, resiliency, pain and focus looked different. My older sibling witnessed new love aka the honeymoon phase, my younger sibling witnessed the Sigh phase aka we made it aka all that hard work has paid off and is stemming more fruit. I was fortunate enough to witness the Grind phase: the win some you lose some, the by any means necessary, the absolute tunnel vision to achieve something greater then yourself phase. With that came a set of standards and rules: never quitting anything I start, Never backing down, Never wavering on my faith even if it means standing nose to nose with an off the cuff “Pastor”. I was bred to be a fighter I laugh when I say this but sometimes I do see myself as a Mutt ( I’m aware that’s not politically correct) some of the heaviest cultural influences in my life stem from some of the roughest places in america: The Father from New York and VA, the mother and Aunt from Tacoma, The uncle from Akron and The best Friend with New Orleans Roots. So needless to say my attitude and demeanor is one that is fearless and relentless. The crazy thing is that with all that wisdom I was surrounded by, it never occurred to me that not everyone was being spoken over or spoken into like I was.

(Fast Forward)

I’m 33 and I find myself talking about growth and staying the course in a conference room full of Men that are 20-30 years my senior, all which have fallen on some kind of hard time whether it be substance abuse, Alcoholism, Incarceration etc, and in the middle of my positive uplifting rant that I think I am absolutely killing by the way, I start to notice that all of these men that are around the ages of my brother and my father have this lost but engaged look on there face. So I stop.. and ask.. Show of hands if this is the first time you have ever heard what I’m saying right now?…Every Single hand goes up……

I then ask: keep your hand up if you all have kids…All hands stayed up….Keep your hands up if you have boys…only one hand went down….

I then realized that I’m talking to a group of men who are blind leading young men who are blind. Humbly, I can say that I am blessed to have an amazing father in heaven that loved me so much that he doubled down and gave me an amazing earthly father who trained me and molded me into the man I am today and I don’t believe that I should keep his words, wisdom and teachings to myself. I think its my purpose to serve those the way I have been served.

So when God called. I answered. and all I heard was…….